


Delicate

by jacemorgensterns



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2020-08-11 14:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 47,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacemorgensterns/pseuds/jacemorgensterns
Summary: Draco Malfoy has no time, or energy, or motivation, to deal with a soulmate. Yet, the timer on his left wrist is telling him that he'll soon meet this person and have no choice in the matter.A spin on the classic soulmates AU in which a timer appears on your left wrist on your eighteenth birthday counting down to the moment you meet your soulmate (again) for the first time. Dramione.





	1. Afraid of the unknown

When you survived a war, everything seemed rather trivial in comparison. Schooling, for example, or business, or even worse: love. Draco was feeling that. He didn’t care. He had cared so much for the past two years that it felt like bliss that he could pretend that his worst concerns were any of those things. None of those threatened his life. None of those included dark magic. None of those would leave injuries, mental or physical. None of those depended on just him.

It meant that when the Wizengamot decided that part of his probation was that he return to Hogwarts, Draco shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t care. When his father declared over dinner that the family business was running poorly, he tuned out. He didn’t care. And when he saw the timer appear on his left wrist on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, he ignored it. And pretended not to care.

The truth was that the entire concept of soulmates was something that Draco had grown incredibly wary of. It had been a romantic idea of some sort, at first. He had to listen to Blaise and Pansy fantasize about their soulmates for years, idly checking their wrists as though the timer would appear already. Your soulmate was supposed to be someone so compatible with you that you were meant to be with them. Everything else was simply a waste of time. In Draco’s mind, however, the only thing that was a waste of time was trying to find his soulmate, because no one would fit with him out of all people. That just wasn’t possible.

And he also didn’t have the time, energy or motivation to deal with a soulmate. He couldn’t handle himself some of the time, never mind a second person that he was supposed to be compatible with. And who would want him, anyway? No one in the right mind would. It was a complete waste of his time, so Draco tried to decide not to care.

It wasn’t working.

The first time he checked his wrist, it was late morning on his birthday. The timer had, of course, already started running. Supposedly it had done so since the moment the clock passed midnight. It said 2097.34. That was still a lot of hours and minutes away. Draco attempted to do the math with a brain that had hardly woken up and concluded it was at least two months away. Nothing to worry about anytime soon. No one to avoid because they should be his soulmate for a while.

But by the time August came around and Draco was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was going to have to return to the place that haunted his nightmares now, the hours started to tick away much faster. 726 hours to go. That was nearly a month, Draco realized. He looked over the (brand new) kitchen table to his parents as he tried, yet again, to do the math. He had a sinking feeling even before he finished the math, because he thought he knew.

September first. His timer was counting down to September first one way or the other. The day he dreaded, that he wished he didn’t exist for, that he didn’t want to live through, was the day he was supposed to meet his soulmate.

It probably should have felt like cruel irony, but it really didn’t. It fit completely in the bigger scheme of things. This was just how his life was. Just when he thought he managed to get through it all, that it couldn’t get worse, there was another thing. He could only disappoint his soulmate. That much was clear. He was just going to have to do it on a day where he already had to put up a good front and deal with everything people wanted to throw at him. 

It was his mother that realized he was staring in front of himself absent-mindedly and hadn’t added anything to the conversation about the possibility of hosting a soiree over the Christmas holidays. He usually had strong opinions about having people in their house. “Draco?” she asked. He didn’t respond. “Drake? What’s wrong?”

He looked up at his mother, shaken away from the thoughts about all the horrible ways that his soulmate could react to the bad news, and shrugged his shoulders. “Remember when I said it would be _years _until I would meet my soulmate, according to the timer? That was a bit of a lie.”

Narcissa and Lucius exchanged a long glance. It was the kind of glance that implied years of history and that made it seem like they could communicate without speaking. That was what Draco wanted for a relationship. Mutual trust and understanding. Loyalty above all. Someone to be able to count on no matter what. He also knew it was a myth, something utterly non-existent. The Mark on his arm didn’t imply he was someone worth being loyal to. His self-destructive tendencies meant there was no use in trusting him because sooner or later, he would betray that trust.

“Did you meet them already?” Lucius asked, apparently trying to ignore the fact that his son flat-out lied about something as significant as his soulmate.

Draco shook his head, repressing the urge to fidget with something. “It’s September first,” he said after a long silence. “The timer is counting down to September first. That means it’s someone from school that I haven’t seen during the summer. It means it’s someone that already hates me.” Hate was a strong word, yes. But strong was what it was going to be after what the Daily Prophet published about the Malfoys and how _truly insane _it was that both Lucius and him got away with their crimes.

Narcissa was, as ever, quick to react. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she soothed him. “You have plenty of friends that you didn’t see over the summer and won’t see until you go back to school. And there are still people that understand that you did what you had to do.”

Friends? That was laughable. Draco had four friends. Pansy, of course, was the best platonic soulmate he could wish for. The entire wizarding world despised the both of them and neither of them cared (tried not to care). Theo was his friend since childhood and had a Death Eater for a father too. He was supposed to join the cause after graduation. Theo got it and didn’t judge. Blaise, while the most vain person ever and seemingly uninterested in everything, had surprisingly come through the past year and stood by Draco during the summer. It was Slytherin loyalty at its best. That left Daphne, who had a knack for being there for someone without them having to say a word about it and keeping it a secret after.

And he saw all four of them over the summer, at one point or another. His soulmate was not any of the four people that Draco knew he could count on. It had been _them against the world _for a long time now and he doubted that anyone would get it, never mind fit in. Never mind want to try any of that, of course.

He fidgeted with the toast on his plate, untouched, until he realized he was doing it and stilled. He shook his head afterwards. “No,” he said. “It’s going to be a disaster. And it doesn’t matter. I don’t need a soulmate. It’s only trouble.”

Yet another exchanged glance between his parents made him grit his teeth. When they got out of the war alive and when they were all put on probation, he had dropped some truth bombs that made it very clear he refused to cooperate in their family ever again if they continued to treat him the way he had. A key word was _communication. _If they joined another extremist organization, Draco would like to know it. If they knew something vital, he would like to know. In fact, if they had anything at all to say, Draco would like to know. And right now he wasn’t in the know.

Narcissa smiled warmly. It was the kind of smile she only reserved for Lucius and him. “It doesn’t matter unless you want it to,” she said. “Some people attach a lot of meaning to it. But not everybody marries the soulmate that the timers indicate. There have been many theories about the subject throughout time. It’s not about doing what the timer tells you. It’s about doing what’s right.” She hesitated briefly. “It’s about what doing what makes you happy.”

He wrinkled his nose at that and delayed having to reply by at last taking a bite of the toast on his plate. He chewed on it slowly as he thought about it. She said that more often, about him doing what made him happy. His life hadn’t been about his happiness, or any happiness at all, for a long time. The objective was staying alive. That he could do. But being happy? He had no idea how to do that. He quite liked himself brooding and moody.

“What’ll make me happy is not acknowledging any of it,” he said at last. “I can’t care. I’ll meet them and hopefully they won’t know so we can all move on.” It would be a disaster, anyway.

“That’s your choice, honey,” Narcissa said, but he could hear in her undertone she didn’t agree. That was fine. She didn’t have to. “Did you want some more tea?”

And with that, the discussion of the subject was over. His mother poured him some more tea and Draco pulled the sleeves of his shirt over the numbers so he wouldn’t see them and be reminded of them. 

He wished he could forget. He wished he didn’t realize it was September first. He wished September first would never come at all.


	2. The last return

Of course, September first came way too soon.

It was a painful fact. When he was younger, September first was a day he looked forward to, like any magical child. September first meant finally going back to school, learning magic, exploring the castle and hanging out with your friends. It wasn’t until two years prior that he started to dread September first. Every September first had posed a different challenge since. Killing Albus Dumbledore. Dealing with the Carrows and a castle full of students hating him. Dealing with his soulmate and a castle full of students hating him.

Whoever said high school, in any form or shape, was the time of your life could not have been more wrong.

Back in the beginning of August he didn’t think it could be much worse, but he had also been wrong. Only mere days after the conversation with his parents about soulmates, his Hogwarts letter arrived. The envelope was heavier than it should be, causing Draco to eye it suspiciously before carefully opening it. As it turned out, he had every right to be suspicious of it. The contents were a joke. To him, that was. They were completely serious by McGonagall, who apparently thought making him Head Boy like he would have been if it weren’t for his sixth and seventh year, would solve all problems in the Hogwarts castle.

Apparently Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter wouldn’t be attending Hogwarts this year, because either one of them (most likely Potter) surely would have gotten Head Boy if they did.

The idea of either of them being Draco’s soulmate was despicable, so at least that was one less thing to worry about. It had crossed Draco’s mind, only to be discarded immediately. No matter who it was, it couldn’t be someone like Weasley or Potter, who were nothing alike him at all and who didn’t possess the perception to begin to try and understand anything about the situation. No, his soulmate was going to be someone clever enough to want to stay away from him.

He supposed that it made sense in a way. If McGonagall made two supposed war heroes Head Boy and Head Girl, there was going to be one house unwilling to listen and ready to undermine them with every word they spoke. Slytherins didn’t take very kindly to those that thought they were better than them and that was exactly what the Light side exuded these days. It wasn’t a matter of siding with the Death Eaters or siding with anyone at all. It was a matter of attitude. Draco could only imagine what someone like Blaise would say if Head Boy Potter tried telling him what to do and smile at the image.

But honestly, it wasn’t like the Slytherins would listen to him any easier than they would to someone like Potter. He was the other end of the spectrum. He was the stereotype they didn’t want representing them. He was who they didn’t want to become if they had any sense at all. They were used to him, though, so that could help. And perhaps McGonagall caught up to the fact that the younger years tended to come to him with their worries and insecurities last year. With a useless head of house and two maniacs running around they didn’t have many options, though.

Whatever the case may be, on September first the new Head Boy boarded the train. He said goodbye to his parents at his manor and arrived even before the Hogwarts Express did, so he could find a train compartment in peace and settle in. The eighth year Head Boy and Head Girl had different duties than the seventh year Head Boy and Head Girl and they weren’t expected at the Prefects carriage, so Draco was happy to hang out with his friends instead. He hadn’t been planning on surveilling through the Hogwarts Express anyway. The overeager fifth year prefects were welcome to do that.

The first one of his friends that joined him in his chosen train compartment was Daphne, shadowed by her younger sister Astoria. Draco eyed the younger girl as Daphne greeted him with a hug. “It’s a good thing you’re going back to school, because I desperately need help with potions,” she said with a light grin as she sat down opposite him. “How have you been?”

Draco lowered the book that he had been reading to his lap and watched how Astoria sat down beside her sister. “I am happy to help you with potions any day,” he said. Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell the truth about how he had been with someone there that he hardly knew and that hardly knew him. “I’ve been fine. Just the usual,” he said. “How are you?”

“It’s true,” a voice that both Daphne and Draco knew very well sounded from the doorway of the wooden compartment door. “Draco Malfoy is still using the word _fine _so much that it means nothing at all to me anymore.” Pansy, of course.

She sauntered through the door and greeted the girls first before getting to him. He didn’t get a chance to get up before she threw her arms around him in a very dramatic gesture, exactly the way that he knew her. When she let go of him she sat down beside Astoria, but not after shooting a look at her as well. That may explain his unnecessary use of the word _fine, _that he only used when he didn’t want to talk about it or was around people whose business it wasn’t how he was doing.

“I get it, Draco,” she spoke, her undertone light. “I wouldn’t want my irritation to undermine the joyous occasion that is going back to school either.” The sarcastic undertone almost wasn’t there, but it wasn’t necessary to use one regardless: it was obvious that it was sarcasm. None of them were looking forward to the school year. Draco sort of doubted that anyone outside of their group did.

It was different, though. Most kids returning only knew that Hogwarts turned into a battlefield, had heard about it, but hadn’t seen it. They remembered the Carrows, but had hopefully not been subjected to their dark arts fascinations. For them it was just school, more or less, Draco imagined. 

And then there were the small amount of people that Draco would just love if he would be able to avoid them for the entire school year. It was going to be impossible, though, because most of them were his classmates. The so-called war victors were an entire group of people that lacked perception and though they had to make up for it in arrogance. They somehow believed that winning the war meant they had done everything right. Reflection was not in the cards and that was what made them so utterly insufferable.

And then there was them. The Slytherins who sided with the Death Eaters or whose parents sided with the Death Eaters. They were in the wrong and they would be reminded of it every chance the others had. Therefore, the words _joyous occasion _didn’t need a sarcastic undertone for everyone in the train compartment to understand that was what it was.

“Did you just call school a joyous occasion?” Blaise’s voice asked. He dropped in the seat next to Draco’s and stretched his legs. “Because I could not agree more. I can’t wait to sit through another Potions class from that Old Slug. The highlight of this year.”

Theo, who had walked in as well, rolled his eyes at Blaise’s comment and sat down on Draco’s other side. “I don’t think the Slug is teaching this year,” he said. “He was already unfit to teach in sixth year. I hope McGonagall realizes we need a Head of House that’s in our corner instead of sucking up to the Gryffindors.”

Draco looked aside at Theo with a little smirk on his face. The other Slytherin never spoke much. He was more of a listener. But when Theo spoke, he was straightforward and often right on the mark. It made Theo ideal company for Draco, who talked too much and never said much at all.

“Slughorn was not great,” Daphne said with a sigh, feigning disinterest in the conversation by studying her nails. “I always wondered why he’s not married, though. He’s charming enough. And he’s part of the Sacred 28. We do value marriage. And tradition.”

“All he values is whatever is in his own benefit,” Draco replied without missing a beat. Beside him Theo chuckled and Pansy laughed softly. “I bet he has an older brother whose accomplishments he could never live up to. His brother got married and got three kids. Two boys, so the Slughorn name would live on.”

Blaise side-eyed him. “Your imagination is still shockingly lively.”

Draco shrugged his shoulders. Daphne, however, was not done yet. “Everyone has a soulmate, right? I suspect at least two of us are lying about ours.” Draco tried checking if she was eyeing anyone in particular, but she stayed suspiciously neutral about it. “But who would belong to the Slug?”

Pansy pulled a face at just trying to imagine it. “Maybe he’s the only exception,” she said dramatically, only to be disturbed momentarily when the Hogwarts Express was set into motion. She leaned aside to be able to look through the window to see the platform disappear. “Maybe he decided that other things were more important than his soulmate.” It was with a sigh that she checked her left wrist. “At least I don’t have to decide that. It’ll be years for me.”

Daphne turned to look at her. “It’ll be worth the wait, I’m sure,” she said with a smile. “Right, guys?” she tried to get back-up from the three of them.

They were suspiciously quiet. Theo was suddenly busy looking out of the window whereas Blaise fidgeted with the sleeves of his shirt. When Draco looked up, Daphne was studying them as though to figure out what they were thinking and Pansy narrowed her eyes, glaring at him. Why did they all have to be so obviously uncomfortable with the subject? If they all just agreed perhaps they could have moved on and Draco wouldn’t be glared at like he was right now.

Pansy shook her head before she got up and offered her hand for Draco to take. “We have to talk,” she said. “And you’re clearly not going to do it here, so let’s do it in the hallway instead.” Draco would have been happy to talk (he could talk for days if necessary), but he had no intention to speak about the subject Pansy was interested in. Unfortunately, as his best friend and platonic soulmate, Pansy always knew exactly when something was bothering him and always got it out of him, because according to her talking about it was better than keeping it all bottled up inside.

It was with a light sigh that Draco took Pansy’s hand to get up and followed her back to the hallway of the Hogwarts Express. Pansy closed the compartment door behind them and studied him for a couple of seconds before she spoke. “You met your soulmate,” she said accusatory. “Your timer started running on the birthday you refused to acknowledge or celebrate, which was rude by the way, and now you met your soulmate and you didn’t even tell me.”

“No, I didn’t,” Draco reacted instantly. As soon as someone accused him of anything, that was his first reaction, no matter if he did it or not. This time, he actually didn’t do it. “I didn’t tell you because there was nothing to tell.” Not technically true. “I didn’t meet my soulmate. The timer is still running.”

“Oh, show me your left arm,” Pansy said, exasperated and clearly done with the entire thing already.

Draco, however, was immediately distracted by a disturbing déjà vu the moment she said those words. She had said them before. Last year, at the Hogwarts Express, Pansy had all but dragged him outside of the train compartment once she realized Draco wasn’t going to be telling her anything with the others there. Once the doors were closed she demanded that he show her his left arm, because she was (correctly) convinced he had the Dark Mark.

“Again?” Draco asked once he managed to shake himself away from that memory and back into the present. “I kind of thought we were past that by now, Pansy.”

Pansy looked at him not-understandingly. “What do you mean? We’ve never spoken about – “ He could see the exact moment when the metaphorical penny dropped and Pansy realized what he meant. She rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t deflect from the subject,” she said. “Just show me the timer so we can discuss it and get back to our friends.”

The door of the compartment opened. “Discuss what?” Blaise asked as he closed the door again and leaned against it. “Because if Draco met someone who can actually put up with him, I think we’d all like to know.”

“Just like I suspect everyone would like to know that your timer lasted only nine hours,” Draco said. “And you yet have to tell us who you laid eyes on two minutes before nine AM in Charms class. So I don’t think you’re a good judge of character here.”

Now that was something that Pansy was distracted by. “Really?” she asked. “You never told me that. How come he knows and I don’t?”

Blaise glared at Draco, who smirked at him. “We stayed up for Blaise’s birthday,” Draco declared. “It was meant to be about giving him his presents and attempting to sleep after, but he freaked out when he checked his wrist. He said he wasn’t ready.”

“And this is one of many reasons why I doubt anyone could put up with you,” Blaise said theatrically. “You can’t keep a secret. It was meant to be between the five of us, Malfoy.”

Well, Draco had no regrets. One way or the other Pansy was going to find out anyway because she always did. She was the only person he couldn’t keep a secret from.

Looking aside, he was right in time to pull Blaise away from the door when he saw Theo get up through the window. Seconds later, the door swung open again and Theo entered the hallway. The hallway was just getting smaller with each new person joining. 

“Oh, are we talking about your eighteenth birthday?” Theo asked Blaise. “That was nice. Did you ever find out who your soulmate was, in the end?”

Blaise was quiet, lips pressed together. Theo and Draco exchanged a glance and Pansy sighed, clearly unimpressed by the entire ordeal. “So each one of you is being extremely vague about their timers and none of you will never figure out who they’re most compatible with,” she summarized. “But at least with Draco we can still change that, hopefully. When does your timer end?”

With three pairs of eyes on him, Draco found it hard to refuse. He glared at them for a couple of seconds longer before he pushed up the sleeve of his shirt just high enough so he could see the timer. “In nine hours,” he said. “More or less.”

Blaise was the fastest with the math. “Half past eight,” he said. “What’s half past eight?”

“I think the point is that you don’t know what’ll happen,” Pansy commented. “I would say that we’re either still at the Welcoming Feast or that we’re on our way to the Slytherin common room. But who are you going to walk into that you didn’t see already? A ghost?”

“Maybe Moaning Myrtle is Draco’s soulmate,” Blaise suggested.

Pansy rolled his eyes at that stupid suggestion and Theo facepalmed. “We won’t know until the clock turns half past eight,” he said. “We’re not going to figure it out.”

The compartment door opened for the third time and Daphne stepped out. Theo and Draco were quick to make room for her. “Figure out what?” she asked. “No offence, but you’re making it kind of obvious that you don’t want to talk with Astoria by going to stand out in the hall.”

Blaise shrugged. “We do want to talk to your sister. We just don’t want to talk about private things with your sister there. That’s not the same thing. It’s none of her business who Draco is going to end up dating by the end of this school year.”

Draco ignored the implication that whoever his soulmate was, was going to need an entire year to want to date him. In fact, if it was just a year until the two of them both wanted to date each other? He’d be very happy about that. “Neither is it any of your business, but yet you’re here,” he was quick to reply instead.

Pansy seemed to want to say something about Blaise’s and Draco’s constant banter, but Theo beat her to speaking. “Currently it’s not anyone’s business because we don’t know who it is,” he said matter-of-fact. “Let’s go back inside before some prefect fifth year attempts to give us detention because we’re in the hallway instead of our compartment.”

“Is that even in the school rules?” Blaise wondered as he followed Daphne inside. A discussion about the most useless school rules ensued seconds later.


	3. Arrival

When they arrived at Hogwarts, they were immediately approached by professor McGonagall. Draco yet had to tell anyone about the surprise that had been in his Hogwarts letter and he had hoped that he wouldn’t have to for a while. But unless McGonagall was going to point them in the direction of the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall or ask them how their summer had been, Draco knew exactly in what direction this was going.

“Mister Malfoy, can I have a word with you, please?” she asked after sending a calm and slight smile in the direction of the entire group. She beckoned for him to follow her.

Draco ignored the glance that Daphne and Pansy exchanged and prepared momentarily for what Blaise would have to say about this. He would have taken the opportunity to get a dig in if it were Blaise so he could only expect that the other would do the same. That was how their dynamic and friendship worked these days: they always had something snarky to say, but at the end of the day they had each other’s backs.

As soon as they descended to the dungeons and were out of sight from the others in the Entrance Hall, McGonagall turned to look at him. She wasted no time nor words. “Congratulations with the title of Head Boy, mister Malfoy,” she said. “Because a lot of your fellow eight years have returned as well, we decided to fill in the duties of the eighth year Head Boy and Head Girl differently from that of the seventh years. Please come and meet me in the Headmistress’ office at half past eight for a further explanation. I take it you know where the office is?”

McGonagall studied him through her glasses in a way that never failed to make Draco uncomfortable: she always looked like she was onto him, even when there was nothing to be onto. It was a look that especially made him nervous during his sixth year, wondering if she knew, afraid that perhaps she heard from Dumbledore or would tell him. But right now there was nothing to be onto. What he did was out there, dragged out of him during his trial, and he was here regardless. He had no plans that a dark wizard was behind and not much of an intention to play a game of hide and seek from certain professors.

“Yes, I’m familiar with the headmistress’ office,” Draco replied. “Thank you, professor. I’ll see you at half past eight.”

They ascended the stairs again and Draco was fast to make his way into the Great Hall and to the Slytherin table. It seemed odd that McGonagall followed him into the Great Hall, since she was supposed to get the first years and lead the Sorting Ceremony. That was when Draco realized that she wouldn’t be the one leading the ceremony any more. She was headmistress now.

He shot a look at the staff table as he walked up to his friends and concluded that professor Sprout was missing. She must be the one leading the Sorting Ceremony, then. He rolled his eyes at the new faces he spotted, he was pretty sure they were both Order members, and was about to make a mention of it as he sat down when it turned out the others were already discussing the staff.

“I can’t believe that McGonagall invited the old Slug back,” Pansy said, irritation plain. “Apparently it’s too much to ask that we have one teacher that may represent Slytherin well and doesn’t suck up to the Gryffindors in the hopes of getting in their good graces.”

“There was much to be said about Snape,” Daphne said with a sigh, “but at least he was a Head of House that looked out for his own students, like a Head of House ought to.”

Draco had been so busy looking at the other staff members that he hadn’t even realized Slughorn was still around. How McGonagall could have hired him back was a mystery. Everyone’s potions grades fell the moment Slughorn took over teaching the subject and when he became the Head of the Slytherin house it could be said that they didn’t have a Head of House any more. The younger years would have to go to the older years if there was anything they needed. And them? They would, as always, have to take care of themselves.

“Did you talk to McGonagall about her very questionable decision-making, Draco?” Daphne asked when she saw he had joined them.

That was what he should have done, because hiring Slughorn again (or still) was not the first questionable decision that she made this summer, Draco thought. Making him eighth year Head Boy was also strange. “No, she said she wanted to see me at half past eight.”

Pansy frowned at him upon hearing that news. Blaise, on the other hand, seemed to have thought of what to say. “So McGonagall is your soulmate?” he asked.

“No, when the timer runs off you see this person for the first time since your eighteenth birthday and -” Pansy attempted to correctly explain why it couldn’t be true, only to shake her head. “Never mind. You’re impossible and you know it.” She turned to look at Draco. “What did she want to see you about?”

Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”Did she say? Well, technically she just told him to meet her in her office about the duties for the eighth year Head Boy duties, but that was not at all clear; after all, she didn’t tell him what these new duties would be entailing.

Pansy frowned and was clearly going to continue asking, but Theo interrupted her. “The first years are about to come in. I want to see what new students we’re getting,” he said to Pansy and Draco. “Are there any siblings of anyone we know?”

“No siblings, but I think that Miles Bletchley has a cousin who is a first year this year,” Pansy said as she glared at the doors of the Great Hall, which were still closed. “Miles was useful enough for Slytherin, if a little aloof.”

“Didn’t you used to have a crush on him?” Blaise interrupted with a smirk.

Pansy glared at him. “That’s beside the point. And you used to have a crush on -” Whatever crush of Blaise’s she was going to bring up was something they would never know, because the doors of the Great Hall opened and professor Sprout walked in, followed by a group of equally scared and amazed first years. Pansy and Draco exchanged a glance, smirking.

The Sorting Ceremony felt the same as it usually was. The Hat sung about having won the fight against evil and its hope for house unity (as if anyone would listen to a Hat) and Pansy pointed out Miles’ cousin to him, who didn’t get sorted into Slytherin. One or two of the new students that did get sorted into their house looked positively terrified of the older years. Draco wanted to bet that some of their parents had told them not to get sorted into Slytherin, the _wrong _house. The times surely had changed in that respect. Yet, Draco couldn’t imagine ever actively wanting to be in Gryffindor and he doubted that he ever would.

The Welcoming Feast was extremely extravagant and therefore felt slightly out of place. Draco was aware this was a festive occasion, but he wasn’t feeling it. Pansy and him shared dessert as Draco glanced through the Great Hall to see if anyone from their year that was in another house had returned. He recognized a few Hufflepuffs (most notably Abbott, Bones and MacMillan) and two Ravenclaws (Boot and Patil) at first glance. The Gryffindor table seemed oddly quiet in comparison, but the eighth years must be mingling with the seventh years, he guessed.

Regardless, the dinner was over too soon. Draco asked about the password to the seventh year Head Boy, who informed him it was ‘muggleborn.’ The agenda that was being pushed by the Ministry and the school was clear enough. This was getting unsubtle. It was with a muttered remark under his breath and a shake of his head that Draco exited the Great Hall alongside his friends, but made his way to the Headmistress’ office, now McGonagall’s office, instead of heading for the Slytherin common room.

When he arrived at the Headmistress’ office, he was able to get onto the stairs of the gargoyle with no problem. It didn’t need a password. Apparently security was not a priority. While the stairs ascended to the door of the office slowly, Draco checked his watch. It was an old heirloom that had been Abraxas’ for years. His father had gotten another watch for his seventeenth birthday and never wanted to wear Abraxas’ watch after the older man passed away. According to the watch it was two minutes before half past eight. It was time, but Draco was pretty sure he was entering an empty office. Yet his timer was ticking away the last seconds, too.

It was with a sigh that Draco pushed open the door to the office. For a couple of seconds he thought he was alone, but he was wrong about that: he had missed a petite woman that was seated in one of the two chairs in front of the desk in the middle of the room. She had very distinctive bushy hair that was very difficult to miss or not to recognize, but Draco was convinced he hadn’t seen that hair or the person wearing that hair in the Great Hall.

She turned around, giving Draco the confirmation he didn’t need. Dark brown eyes widening, she studied him for a couple of seconds before she pulled herself together. “Draco, what are you doing here?” she asked, strangely addressing him with his first name instead of his last. “McGonagall isn’t here and she said she needed to talk to me and the eighth year Head Boy. Maybe you could wait out in the hallway or try tomorrow.”

Granger was kinder than usual, but still lacking perception because she could only see the situation from her own point of view. Maybe that was why she wasn’t in Ravenclaw, Draco considered. She couldn’t open her mind enough. Absentmindedly, he rubbed over his left wrist where the timer had hit zero and where the numbers were slowly disappearing. He glanced down. The numbers were almost gone. This was it.

What a disaster.

“That would be me,” Draco said matter-of-factly as he walked towards Granger and McGonagall’s desk slowly. The door closed behind him. “I’m the eighth year Head Boy. I’m sure McGonagall has her reasons. You can argue with her after I leave.”

Granger frowned at him for that remark. “Do you really think I would argue with Headmistress McGonagall?” she asked. The tone was both offended and a little haughty, something that reminded Draco of his mother, disturbingly. “Of course not. Professor McGonagall must have a very valid reason to make you Head Boy, Draco.”

_Draco. _There his first name was again. How would she feel if he started calling her by her first name? Truthfully, he didn’t think he could do it. Granger was just Granger, the irritating Gryffindor know-it-all muggleborn. That his timer indicated that she was his soulmate must be a fluke or a joke. It would do her some good not being extremely respectful towards authorities.

“When is your birthday?” he asked her, by all appearances out of the blue. It was anything but. If she was indeed his soulmate, like the timer indicated, it would have counted down to meeting him sometime between September first last year and right now. That just depended on when she turned eighteen. If that had been sometime during the war, odds were that she saw him during a battle with a Death Eater mask on instead. He couldn’t imagine how she felt in that case. And he shouldn’t care.

“September nineteenth,” she said after a short pause, clearly puzzled why he would ask such a thing. She didn’t ask, though. “When’s yours?” she asked instead.

“June fifth,” he replied, studying her briefly before he finally sat down on the seat beside hers. He didn’t see why she asked, so he guessed that made two of them.

The silence between the two of them, one that could surely be called awkward, was broken by the door opening again. They both looked behind them to see McGonagall enter.

“Miss Granger, mister Malfoy, I’m glad to see you’re both here on time,” the headmistress said as she walked past them and sat down in front of her office. “You’ve been chosen as eighth year Head Boy and Head Girl. Because we don’t usually have as many eighth years as we do now, the board and I decided to choose two representatives of the eighth years. Your duties will be similar to those you already had as prefects, but with the additional task of keeping an eye out for your fellow eighth year classmates.”

“What does that entail exactly, professor?” Hermione piped up. Draco was shocked that she wasn’t taking notes yet.

“I know the past year has been rough on all of us, in very different ways,” McGonagall said, taking her time to study both Draco and Hermione. “The two of you have always shown potential and leadership abilities. The eighth years have to know that there’s someone they can turn to, as do the younger students. They won’t go to the seventh year Head Boy and Head Girl because they don’t know them as well. Be available to them. It’s you that they’ll trust.” She paused briefly. “Of course, I’ll also ask you to monitor the halls after curfew, look out for students breaking school rules and tutoring. You’ll have your own common room to consult between the two of you and use for tutoring smaller groups. I took the liberty of reserving a bed- and bathroom for each of you with the common room as well.”

There was too much to be said about the activities McGonagall listed off (did she seriously think he would be telling younger students off about breaking school rules?) so he focused on the most important thing of them all. “Can’t I just stay in the Slytherin common room and in the dormitory with Blaise and Theo?” he asked.

McGonagall’s piercing gaze was now directed at him. “You’re not obliged to stay in the Eighth year common room, mister Malfoy,” she said. “You should know the option is available to you must you want it, later on. The password is _Flamel. _Are there any more questions?”

Draco shook his head. McGonagall was in a particularly punctual mood and probably wanted this conversation over with as much as he did. Granger, on the other hand, had at least three questions. Draco tuned it out and fidgeted with the sleeves of his robes. Once or twice he caught himself studying Granger’s profile from the side, only to shake himself out of it. This had to be a mistake. He could never be perfectly compatible with someone as boring, rule-following and close-minded as Granger and that was coming from the formerly possibly closest minded person he ever knew.

The moment that McGonagall answered the list of Granger’s questions, he automatically got up to leave. He thankfully beat Granger to reaching the stairs, but she caught up with him before he exited the corridor. They both had to make their way to the staircase.

“Do you want to meet tomorrow after our classes to discuss what classes we can tutor and figure out a schedule for patrolling the hallways?” she asked. 

“Sounds good,” Draco said, keeping up the pace so they would reach the main staircase sooner. “We should do it after dinner. Half past seven is good. We can obviously meet in our eighth year common room.” It was lunacy that McGonagall suggested he share living quarters with Granger. He would never. Especially with the knowledge he had now. It was another reason to stay away as far as possible from her.

“Half past seven works with me as well,” she said. “I was thinking if we both make a list of the subjects we think that we could tutor and put them in order from easiest to most difficult, we could split them between us. We may have to do a few together. Some subjects are taught better when there’s two of us.”

Draco was hardly listening and was relieved when they arrived at the main staircase. Something about tutoring? This was Granger in her element: she was bossy and she immediately assumed that her organized ideas were the best thing to apply regardless of the situation. He couldn’t work with someone like that. There was no way that this woman was his soulmate. The most prevalent emotion she was inspiring was irritation and that wasn’t even getting into their shared history.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, cutting her off abruptly. “My friends are waiting for me.”

Without waiting on a reply, Draco turned on his heels and made his way down the stairs, ready to hide away from Granger and the truth in the Slytherin common room.


	4. Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to feel like I should have added the word 'slow-burn' in the summary before chapter one, because right now these two cannot stand each other. 
> 
> Of course, the title of this chapter refers to both the wonderful Beatles song and Draco failing to be witty for a change.

Naturally, Draco didn’t meet Granger at their new shared common room at half past seven. It wasn’t that he forgot, exactly, even if that was what he would claim happened if she asked. Rather, he decided that he couldn’t deal with her and thus started to avoid her for the entirety of the first school day. He was rather good at avoiding, seeing as he had attempted to avoid two particular professors for a better part of last school year. It meant that he caught glimpses of Granger during classes and in the Great Hall, but he hadn’t spoken to her and looked at her directly. That was how he liked it, because right now he couldn’t handle it.

Nor did he tell Pansy about Hermione Granger being his soulmate, or anyone for that mattered. He had tried playing the conversation out in his head to see if it was something he wanted to get into. It went like this:

_“Granger walked through the door?” Pansy was laughing unacceptably loud at Draco’s obvious misery. “You have got to be kidding me. It was Granger?”_

_Blaise, as ever, had uncanny (and terrible) timing. Sticking his head past the door frame, he regarded Pansy with a slight frown in his eyebrows. “Could you be laughing any louder? Some of us are trying to take our education somewhat seriously here.”_

_“Potions is so unimportant compared to this,” Pansy said as she theatrically wiped tears from her eyes from laughter. “You must hear this. Remember when we calculated on the Hogwarts Express that Draco would meet his soulmate half past eight? It was Granger.”_

_Blaise’s face expression went from annoyed to amused in approximately one second, something that would have been highly comical had it not been for the fact that it was Draco’s recent discovery that they were laughing at. He pushed the door open further and sat down as well. Clearly, he had to hear all about it too._

That just wouldn’t do. He was fine being the punch line of a joke every now and then. It wasn’t about his ego, either, because if there was anything that was bad for his ego it was his own thoughts. But this was about the person he was meant to be most compatible with, the person he should be happy to spend his life together with. Even if he tried looking at it the negative way, he had some false hope that it would work and set himself up for disappointment.

Objectively speaking, Hermione Granger was great. She fought bravely in the war and was the mastermind behind Harry Potter and his friends destroying the Horcruxes and defeating Voldemort. She was rumoured to be the most clever person her age. Intellectually she would be able to keep up with him and she wasn’t the person to let him walk over her or let him get away with anything. Granger was strong and independent and by all appearances brilliant and anyone would be lucky to have her as their soulmate.

But here was the catch: he wasn’t objective. Granger was his arch enemy’s best friend. Granger was a muggleborn. Granger punched him in the face in their third year, constantly beat him at being the best in their classes, was an irritating know-it-all, had a hero complex and thought that she was always right about everything. Granger was the living proof that everything Draco used to stand for (blood purity) was wrong, because she clearly wasn’t inferior like the blood purity ideology claimed she was. Granger won the war, Draco lost his belief system and now they were stuck together.

So that meant he wasn’t going to the agreed on half past seven meeting. His mind kept confusing it with half past eight anyway, which would have been another good excuse were it not for the fact that ever-curious Granger would ask why he would confuse it with half past eight. There was a line between studious and annoying and Granger lived on that line. Instead, Draco deliberately went to the place that Hermione Granger was least likely to be found: the quidditch pitch. Because it was only the first day back, no one was found at the pitch yet. It meant that he was free to fly his laps to get the feeling of flying back. He let out a Snitch for a while and caught it three times before putting it back in the case again with a simple spell. Afterwards Draco flew back to the ground, got a beater’s bat and hexed a bludger so he could practise hitting bludgers for a while.

When he was getting cold and considered ending the session and hitting the shower, he saw a figure heading for the quidditch pitch. Granger. Of course. While he did believe she may figure out where he was, he didn’t think that she would put in as much effort as to come and see him at the pitch. He didn’t think that she even ever entered the pitch before. It was odd, he thought. She wanted to be the best at everything that involved magic. She was desperate to prove the point that muggleborn students weren’t inferior. Yet when it came to brooms and flying Granger didn’t even try, she just decided she was bad at it. He couldn’t follow that line of the thought of the usually so logical Hermione Granger and even that annoyed him. She was so obvious usually, but her dislike for flying wasn’t and neither was her showing up here.

She stood still beside him, but put a considerable amount of distance between the two of them. That probably was because he was standing with a bat in his hands. “You didn’t show up,” she said, surprisingly softly for someone who was usually so loud. He looked aside at her, meeting her gaze. “Don’t look at me. Look at the bludger. I have no desire to be hit by a bludger.”

Draco swung the bat back so it was leaning on his right shoulder, ready to swing it back in the starting position when the Bludger approached again. “You don’t have to worry. Unless I actively fire a bludger at you, it’s not coming in your direction.” Hermione was still glaring at him, though. “Fine. Do you want me to freeze it mid-air? What are you even doing here?”

Hermione shook her head and took another tentative step away from him, making Draco roll his eyes. She ignored that. “Look, Draco,” she started, also ignoring the way that he gritted his teeth because she called him by his first name, “you’re acting weird. If you’re annoyed, you’re always straight-out annoyed. You’ve never hidden your dislike for me. You’ve always looked for opportunities to get a snide remark in and make me feel bad about myself. We have to get work done, so you need to get past this.”

The bludger came back and Draco took the opportunity to give the bat a good swing. He watched how the bludger flew away before he got his wand and froze the bludger mid-air. Afterwards he turned to look at Granger. “Do you want me to unload months worth of crap that I’ve been waiting to say, just so we can get work done?” he asked with a mocking undertone. Apparently that was a start. “I’m not doing it. I can’t.” He couldn’t because she apparently was his soulmate and he supposed that was not how you should treat your soulmate, but that wasn’t what he could tell her. “If I do so much as make one snide remark and you tell anyone, the rumour will spread and the entire school with turn against me. I like being a scapegoat as much as the first person, but that’s a little too much even for me.”

Granger sighed. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I don’t want you to say mean things about me to make yourself feel better, because that’s not what you need to get over.” He was sure that his entire face expression was spelling out _then what is it? _because she took a few steps in his direction until she was standing right in front of him. “McGonagall chose you for a reason. You have to be there for the other Slytherins. You have the chance to make right what you did wrong. If you let prejudice get in your way you’ll never achieve anything.”

Well. He was right about one thing. Granger was still unable to see anything from a point of view other than her own. The fact was that the blood purity ideology failed to work for him, but trying to explain it was a frustrating exercise in digging into his own brain. What he thought it came down to was that the war proved that blood purity wasn’t correct. The side of the blood traitors and the mudbloods won against all the odds and his mother had to pull off a very dangerous last minute alliance switch with the hopes of saving them because the Dark Lord losing would have been the end of the very pure Malfoy bloodline under the leadership of a half-blood. It was all very confusing.

“Yes, you’re completely correct,” Draco said, staring at something behind her. “I am such a prejudiced blood purist that I can’t be in the same room with you. I can’t face you knowing that your blood, that makes you so much lesser than me, is -” Was what? He was totally losing track of what he was saying, which proved how distracted he was. “Something,” he finished his sentence. “Now please leave and I’ll see you tomorrow at seven at the common room.”

Of course Granger didn’t make any effort towards leaving. She stared at him for a couple of seconds before she averted her gaze to the frozen bludger. “So it’s not the prejudice,” she said, sounding genuinely surprised and confused. Draco rolled his eyes again. Soon enough his eyes would start to hurt from doing that. “Then what is it? I thought you were suppressing your dislike because more people are against you now.”

“I guess you don’t know everything, then.” Draco turned back to look at the field. “Maybe you should go look it up in the library.”

Granger sighed and pressed her lips together. She raised a hand to push a few locks of her bushy hair back (and damn him for following the movement) and seemed to think before she spoke, probably because her first reaction was to snap at him. “Would you care to tell me what it is, so we can get past it and get work done?”

“No.”The reaction was instant, because he was used to doing the exact opposite of what people wanted him to. That was his default these days: pushing boundaries and pushing people until they snapped and decided he wasn’t worth their time, because it was easier. Granger should have gotten that, that he wasn’t worth her time, in her head a long time ago. “It may be good for you, feeling like you don’t know everything. You don’t have all the answers, you see, no matter how much you like to think that you do. You’re wasting your time coming to talk to me.”

She seemed to consider that briefly as well and still wasn’t snapping, much to Draco’s annoyance. “I don’t think I am,” she said eventually. “I may not know you very well, a point you’ve made by now, but I do know you care about prestigious titles like a Head Boy title.”

“You think that because it makes me better than everyone else, I want it?” he questioned. “Like I wanted to believe in the blood purity supremacy idea because it made me better than everyone else? You really are more daft than people think.” If nothing else, insulting her intelligence would have to do it. That really ought to piss her off. “Face it, Granger: you’d never understand. You don’t have the common ability to look at a situation from someone else’s perspective because you think yours is superior. And you know what that makes you? Me.”

That did it. Granger glared at him angrily and Draco was surprised that she didn’t stomp her feet on the precious ground of the quidditch pitch. “Get lost, Draco,” she spat at him before she turned on her heels and made her way back towards the castle.

Draco smirked to himself as he watched her leave, only to find her look back to check if he was looking at her. It was too late to look away, so he looked straight back at her until she turned back away and disappeared out of sight. Annoyed by the entire ordeal, Draco summoned the bludger and put it back in the case. On the one hand he was happy about having pissed off Granger, because at least that was normal. But nothing else about this was. She came to find him and tried to reason with him despite of knowing that he wouldn’t cooperate, because had he ever? They spent the past seven years hating each other’s guts, being on opposite sides of the war and never giving the other an inch. But she suddenly had.

Halfway across the pitch on his way back to the dressing rooms, Draco paused. He turned back to the place where Hermione had disappeared back to the castle as he came to a distinct conclusion.

She _knew._


	5. I guess that's why they call it the blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written whilst listening to the Elton John cover album, specifically 'I guess that's why they call it the blues' by Alessia Cara, hence the title of this chapter.

By the time that Draco returned to the Slytherin common room, it had passed curfew. That didn’t mean that the common room was empty. It wasn’t crowded, the younger years having retreated to their dormitories already, but most NEWT students were scattered around the common room. Some were sitting around the fireplace talking, others were studying by the tables. Draco found Pansy curled up on a couch nearby the stairs with a blanket. The others were still doing homework, but Pansy seemed to be leisurely reading. She had a thing for crime novels.

He hated to disturb her, but he needed to talk to someone about this. He thought he didn’t have to, that everything would resolve itself because Granger would never know and that he would get over it, but their disagreement, with a lack of a better word, and Draco’s realization afterwards put a different spin on the situation. He knew he ran the scenario in his head earlier, but the risk of getting laughed at didn’t seem so bad now that he actually needed to deal with Granger and the soulmate thing. Eventually Pansy would find it less funny and may have something useful to say.

“You’re brooding ten feet away from me,” Pansy commented, eyes still on her book. “I have radar for three things, Draco. One, when people talk about me behind my back. Two, when my friends are lying. And three, when you’re brooding. You’ve been doing it for three days now, so are you going to talk to me or are you going to continue to brood?”

Draco looked around the rest of the common room to check if everyone was out of earshot before he crossed the space to the couch that Pansy was sitting at. Pansy made room for him and pushed a part of the blanket towards him. He sat down beside her and pulled the blanket over his feet. Pansy put the book away on the small table next to the couch and moved so she was sitting with her back against the side leaning of the couch and put her legs over his lap.

He sighed and looked aside at Pansy briefly before he spoke. “I met my soulmate. It was nothing like how Blaise and you said it would be.” Of course, how Blaise and her described it had been a dream of two children wanting more to life than just living up to their parents’ expectations. He didn’t know why he even remembered those conversations. Maybe because he wanted it to be like that. Sparks flying, a connection from the moment you meet, someone that gets you. Instead he got Granger, hope was still false and his life was exhausting.

Pansy curled up against him and looked up at him briefly. “I know it’s Granger,” she said. “When you didn’t show up at your meeting, she came to find me in the Great Hall. Everyone was staring. She told me about the meeting on September first. I thought you’d be bragging about getting Head Boy.”

“I got Head Boy because I’m a basket case that McGonagall wants to fix,” Draco said. “That’s not really brag-worthy.” And that wasn’t the point of this conversation, either. He didn’t need Pansy to attempt to make him feel better by boosting his ego. His ego was fine as it was. “What do I do? Granger clearly wants something from me, because she wouldn’t have asked you where I was and went after me to talk to me if she didn’t. But I can’t give her what she wants.”

Pansy was quiet as she seemed to consider that. Draco was pretty sure he was already getting ahead of himself, because clearly Granger was only trying because of the soulmate thing. She must have stupidly concluded that there had to be some redeeming qualities about him because he was so compatible to her. Draco thought that maybe Granger was a worse person than people took her for, because he sure wasn’t any better than they thought.

“Look, Drake,” Pansy said as she sat straight up. “The way I see it, you have two options. The first option is to ignore it. You can keep blowing off Granger like I have no doubt you did very well. Eventually she’s going to give up and want nothing to do with you. It seems like the option you’re pushing for, because that’s what you do.” Draco pulled a face at that correct assessment, but Pansy ignored him and continued. “The second option is to talk to her. Do what you’re so afraid of. Be vulnerable. Open yourself up to the possibility of having someone other than your friends in your corner, because a girl asking _me _where you are is not a girl that doesn’t want to try.”

“The second option sounds terrible,” Draco said. Pansy rolled her eyes.

While Draco may have had some false hope as far as meeting the perfect person and puzzle pieces falling into place, he stood by his point of being terribly unfitted to be with anyone. He was the master of keeping people that cared about him at arm’s length. Making up scenarios in his head from conversations he didn’t want to have and therefore didn’t have to was only the beginning. Pansy knew it, which was why she didn’t bring it up and waited for him to come to her.

“Draco, I love you, but she’s your soulmate and if you keep pushing her away she’s going to want nothing to do with you and you will have screwed up your only chance of being with your soulmate,” Pansy said, looking aside at him. “And you’re not alone in this situation. She’s trying. Why can’t you do the same? You’re not the only one hurting in this situation.”

“But she -” Draco protested instantly, only to realize he didn’t have an end to that sentence. This was starting to feel like fourth year all over again, when he tried to talk to Daphne about his first fight with his first girlfriend. Irony had it that said first girlfriend was now talking to him about his soulmate.

He knew what his problem was, other than it being Granger. She won the war. She may be hurting too, but at least her hurt was acknowledged. The people that she fought alongside didn’t go to jail. She wasn’t put through trials. She didn’t have to deal with the pressure of her parents and herself going to jail. He lived the nightmare that she fought to avoid and at the end of the day she was cheered on and he was despised. It wasn’t the same.

“It’s different,” he said. “We’re too different. She’s a know-it-all. She’s stupidly stubborn. She always thinks she knows better and she never does. She constantly feels like she has to prove herself and is always trying to be more than she can be.”

“You’re describing yourself, Draco,” Pansy said. “Maybe you can’t stand her because of the idea of a soulmate. It has nothing to do with her. You’re just afraid and you can’t admit that Granger may be the only person in this castle that could keep up with you.”

Draco side-eyed Pansy for that remark, but had nothing left to say. That was probably because she was right. That was the annoying thing about Pansy and that was what he should have taken into consideration when he tried to imagine this conversation. Pansy was usually right and Draco usually hated it when she was right, because he ended up listening to his feelings and doing the right thing. He would much rather be a brooding bad boy cliché, the way that others stupidly saw him, instead of some guy dealing with what he was feeling.

“What about you?” he asked after a long silence.

“What about me?” Pansy asked. “It’s not like much will change if you start attempting to get to know your soulmate. It’ll be weird because it’s Granger, but you have more history with her and her friends than I do. And it’s not like you won’t be my best friend anymore.”

Draco looked aside at Pansy briefly, eyebrows raised. “That was not what I meant, but thank you for letting me know that you’re concerned.” After all, if it hadn’t been on her mind, she wouldn’t have mentioned it. Before giving Pansy a chance to protest, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him. “You’re right, you know.” Was she ever not? “You’re stuck with me forever, soulmate or no soulmate. You’ll always have a spare room in my house meant for you. You’ll be invited to every stupid soiree. You’ll be the first one to have to hear about it when I’m brooding, which is always.”

Pansy sighed theatrically and glared at him briefly, but failed to keep a straight face. “You’re making it sound like something way worse than it is,” she said, a laugh in her voice. She couldn’t keep serious for too long when he was teasing her. “But what did you mean, if not that?”

“Well, this is the second time in three days we discussed my soulmate,” he said, pulling a face as though that was painful for him (it was). “But I’ve never once heard you mention yours, other than say it’ll be a while. So what is going on with your timer?”

Pansy let go of Draco just enough to be able to show him the running timer on her left wrist. At first glance, there were more numbers than Draco had ever had on his wrist. The number was just over the 30,000. That was a whole different kind of math than what he had tried to do when he saw the almost 2100 hours on his wrist. The 2100 hours had felt far away when he saw them on his birthday, but Pansy’s 30,000 hours made far away into an understatement.

Draco looked aside at Pansy. “When is that?” he asked.

“In about three and a half years, more or less,” she replied. “It means I have some time to meddle in your love life.” She smiled at that remark. “I was relieved, honestly. It means my soulmate is not likely to be someone I already know. I hope I meet them abroad.”

To Draco, it was fascinating how the timer already knew where Pansy and her soulmate were going to be in three and a half years, when they were going to meet. It felt like determinism to him. He always felt that free will and determinism couldn’t go together, but wasn’t that exactly the point? Free will wouldn’t have pushed him in the direction of Hermione Granger. His timer was pushing him into that direction, because that was knowledge outside of his experience that told him what to do. He was welcome not to listen (that was where his free will came into play), but he could also decide to use the information regardless. It was like a piece of advice that you could decide to listen to or not listen to.

“It means that we can spend three years making up theories about this person,” Draco said. “So you want to meet them abroad. Where? Spain or France or China? I hear Mexico is great.”

“Mexico sure sounds great,” Pansy said. “And my parents are totally going to fall for this story, so they’ll let me travel the world for years because I could be meeting my soulmate.” She looked aside at him. “What did yours say?”

He _forgot_ about his parents! The look of sheer horror as he realized that was probably comical, but Pansy just seemed concerned. Draco considered it. His mother may be somewhat okay with it, because she thought that Draco should meet his soulmate and actually give it a try. That much had been clear in the very small conversation they had about the subject. His father, still a blood purist, was going to be the problem. That man was paradoxical in every way possible and Draco understood none of them. The solution, therefore, was simple.

“I’m going to have to get my mother to talk to my father, I guess,” he said. “If Granger wants anything to do with me after all and after this evening, that is. I was not very nice to her.”

“You aren’t known for being nice, Draco,” Pansy replied dryly. “You should go talk to her.” When Draco attempted to get up (but failed because Pansy wasn’t getting up and her legs were still laying over his lap) she frowned at him. “Not right now. It’s past curfew. Saint Granger wouldn’t want her soulmate breaking rules to see her.”

“Saint Granger is going to have to get used to me breaking school rules if Saint Granger wants anything to have to do with me,” he replied. “But I’ll wait.”


	6. Good guys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter from Hermione's point of view that some of you asked about! For those of you wondering about the title, this chapter was written to Mika's Good Guys. 
> 
> On another important note, I wanted to thank all of you for reading, bookmarking, giving kudo's and commenting on this story! It truly means a lot to see that you are enjoying the story to far & I love reading the comments that you're leaving. So thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

The truth was that Hermione had never put much thought into who her soulmate would be. To her, it was a given that she had one and that she would probably have to be with this person, because there was logic in compatibility. Everything else wouldn’t work as well, so why fight the obvious? It was Lavender and Parvati that spent evenings giggling and fantasising about their future soulmates, keeping up the rest of their dorm because they couldn’t keep quiet.

Once or twice Parvati and Lavender asked her what she thought, if there was any person or any type of person that Hermione wanted to be her soulmate. She never told the other girls about any crushes that she had. If anything, she said that she would like the person that was her soulmate to be clever, to be a good person, to understand her.

But she got Draco Malfoy for a soulmate, who as far as Hermione was concerned was none of those things.

Her timer started to run when she was on the run with Harry and Ron. Since it was still months to go when it appeared on her birthday, she immediately knew it wasn’t either one of her two best friends. She used the timer as an indication that something would happen that day, because they weren’t meant to meet other people. She was hoping that the war could be won and over by the day that her timer ended. Sometimes she even thought that perhaps the war had been lost by then and she had fled to Australia to join her parents, where she met another refugee and bonded with them.

She could never have imagined the situation that led her to lay eyes on Draco Malfoy for the first time since her eighteenth birthday. That was probably for the better. If she had known, the situation would have been worse, impossibly so.

But she didn’t know laying eyes on her soulmate was what she did until after it happened. No, it wasn’t until Dobby disapparated them all to Shell Cottage and Hermione was healed by Bill and Fleur and rested, that she looked at her wrist and concluded there wasn’t a timer any more. The possibly most horrifying day of her life had also been the day that she met her soulmate. Her soulmate, the boy who lied about recognizing Harry Potter to his parents and aunt and bought them enough time to get away from Malfoy Manor. Her soulmate, the Death Eater that had been involved in the murder of Albus Dumbledore.

She didn’t have any space to think of him during the war, after the Malfoy manor incident. All she could do was hope that he made it out alive. Sometimes, during fleeting moments, she wondered if he had already known that she was his soulmate and if that was why he lied. During the Battle of Hogwarts, she was terrified for him during the fiendfyre. But more than anything, she felt like she was thinking about a myth, about the idea of a soulmate, about the person that Draco Malfoy could be. 

Today, at the quidditch pitch, Draco proved that he would never be anything like what a younger version of Hermione would have wanted, or what the current version of her would have hoped for. Draco Malfoy was still the miserable person that he had always been and Hermione didn’t think that she’d mind life without a soulmate if the alternative was spending time with Draco Malfoy.

When Hermione returned to the castle from the quidditch pitch, she had slowly calmed down. She had almost forgotten how Draco had always been able to infuriate her because he knew exactly what buttons to push. He was so utterly irritating. As he predicted correctly, though, she was headed towards the library. Unlike what he thought, however, she wasn’t there to look up anything. She left her study partner there a while ago when she thought she was going to meet Draco and ended up having to find him at the quidditch pitch.

Ginny was still in the same spot where Hermione left her to find Draco, her head bend over a potions book. When she heard footsteps she looked up, by all appearances ready to scold at the person that came to disturb her, only to smile lightly when she saw Hermione. “Hi. How was your meeting with Malfoy?”

Hermione wasn’t the kind of person that told her girl-friends about her crushes and boyfriends. Formerly she didn’t have any girl-friends, she just had Harry and Ron who always found a way to make her feel bad about the boy she liked. They surely would have a lot to say about Draco, as though Hermione could help it. But she felt like she had to tell someone, and thankfully Ginny had been the voice of reason when Hermione still had hope.

Therefore it probably wouldn’t surprise Ginny what happened, Hermione thought. She sat down across the table from Ginny, they had chosen a table carefully hidden away by two bookcases so no one would disturb, and sighed. “He was terrible,” she said matter-of-fact as she got her books from her bag and got the essay for Transfiguration that she had been working on. “We couldn’t even get to the part where we discusssed our Head Boy and Head Girl duties, since he was too busy insulting me and telling me how I would never get it.”

Ginny shook her head. “That sounds like the Malfoy we know and love to hate,” she said. “It figures that not even a war could make him dislike us less. You’d think that he’d have some perspective by now. Does he even know that you’re soulmates?”

Briefly, Hermione thought back to the conversation they had in the Headmistress’ office before Headmistress McGonagall arrived. They didn’t exactly get off on the right foot and that she blamed herself for. Immediately assuming that he was there to discuss something else with McGonagall – she thought that he would have to discuss the rules of his probation with Headmistress McGonagall and probably Professor Slughorn as well – Draco had almost kindly told her that she was wrong, only to ask her a question that should have been odd without context.

“He knows,” Hermione replied. “He asked about my birthday almost immediately. I am not sure if he knows that I know, but he’s clever enough to have figured that out by now.” Sure, Hermione liked to get work done and do it well, especially when it was assigned by Headmistress McGonagall. Yet she didn’t think that she would have pushed Draco as much if it was just about the work.

“And yet he was rude to you anyway?” Ginny concluded, eyebrows frowning. “Once a blood purist, always a blood purist, I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders and bent her head over her potions homework again, as though that was the logical conclusion. It wasn’t. It may be hard to fathom, but Draco Malfoy was not a blood purist any more.

“Are you talking about Draco?” a voice that Hermione knew well asked. She hadn’t even known that Luna was nearby, otherwise she wouldn’t have said anything. She didn’t mind Luna, of course. Luna was a friend. But some things were better said without Luna within earshot, because Luna had strange opinions about everything. Hermione wanted to bet that included Draco. Perhaps she thought that Draco was secretly the lead singer of the Weird Sisters.

Ginny looked up at Luna with a smile and pushed her bag aside so Luna could sit down and use the table as well. Hermione saw the chances of her finishing her transfiguration essay get smaller as Luna sat down and smiled brightly at both of them. She was wearing her butterbeer caps necklace and seemed to have some brightly coloured feathers bound into her hair.

“He’s not that bad,” Luna said dreamily. She didn’t make any effort towards getting her books and leaned back against her chair, seemingly studying the ceiling. “He was actually really kind to me last year.”

Ginny and Hermione exchanged an uncomfortable glance, neither of them unsure what to say to that rather bizarre announcement. Hermione didn’t think that she’d ever heard the words _Draco _and _not that bad _in one sentence. It simply wasn’t true.

It was Ginny that asked. “Last year? Luna, we were at Hogwarts until Christmas and I think I’ve only seen him twice in that time. I doubt that he was even going to school full-time.”

Now that was news to Hermione too. To her knowledge Draco had to retake his seventh year as a condition of his probation. Despite of knowing better, she had gotten a subscription to the Daily Prophet again the moment the war ended and kept an eye on whatever was written about the Malfoys. But if Draco hadn’t attended school last year, like her, that meant he was doing something that Hermione didn’t want to think about.

Luna looked towards Ginny thoughtfully. “I meant after Christmas,” she clarified. “At Malfoy manor.”

Another glance exchanged between Ginny and Hermione, who both didn’t know what to say. Luna truly had a talent for making every possible situation more uncomfortable. Of course, Hermione knew that Luna had eventually been taken by the Death Eaters and held captive in the Death Eaters’ headquarters, Malfoy Manor. But she never thought that Draco would have been there much, because he should have been at school. Unless he wasn’t, like Ginny just implied.

“Luna,” Ginny said, turning towards her friend, “if you have a message of hope about Draco Malfoy, I think we,” she glanced aside at Hermione briefly, “we would love to hear it. But don’t feel like you have to talk about what happened at Malfoy manor.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Luna said serenely. She smiled at Ginny before turning to look at Hermione. “He was kind. The first week, he sneaked downstairs when no one seemed to be around and gave me a blanket. I had to hide it for months. I think it’s still there.” She seemed genuinely concerned about that for a moment. “Sometimes he was sent downstairs to get us water and food. Once or twice he brought us more than he was allowed to. He asked how we were and if there was anything he could do. When I told him that Ollivander was hurt he seemed untouched, but when we woke up the next day there was a healing paste laying next to the water.”

Not Hermione nor Ginny knew what to say. Luna studied Hermione briefly with her lips pressed together before smiling again. “I see,” she said. “You don’t see the significance.” No, she definitely didn’t. So Draco Malfoy proved to be a decent human being. Wouldn’t everyone in that situation do so? If you had a chance to aid prisoners that were wrongfully imprisoned, wouldn’t you do it? It seemed like common sense to Hermione.

Luna shook her head briefly. “Draco took risks,” she said. “I’ve heard him plead and scream and cry. He was a prisoner in that house as much as we were. If Voldemort found out that he gave us more water, he would have tortured Draco. He could have killed him for the healing paste, I reckon. We were the enemy and Draco did little things so we suffered less.”

“But isn’t that -” Hermione started to protest, a theory already forming in her head. “That’s what they do. His mother did it by betraying Voldemort when telling him that Harry was dead when he wasn’t. She played both sides. Maybe that was Draco’s angle. If Voldemort lost, you could testify for him and say that he tried to help you and the Ministry may let him off the hook. Just like they did.” 

“Hermione,” Luna said, her voice very clear and sharp suddenly, “I was locked in the basement of his parents’ house and Voldemort was going to kill me the moment he saw fit. Draco had nothing to gain by aiding Ollivander and me. He just had something to lose.”

Luna’s perspective on the matter sure was clear now, Hermione thought. She didn’t take Luna as someone who would stick up for a boy who had been the school bully for years for no reason, but she seemed to feel very strongly about it. She glanced back at her books and the parchment, unsure what to say. Hope that Draco may be a better person than she took him for came flooding back. But if that were the case, what had his angle been by being rude to her earlier?

Luna, however, wasn’t done. “Draco is like a chameleon,” she said. “He adjusts. Most people want a scapegoat, so that’s the role he plays. I needed some kindness, so that was what he gave me. I suppose Voldemort wanted him to be a warrior, so that was what he tried to be.”

Ginny asked the question that had also come to Hermione’s mind. “But if you play so many roles, then how do you know which one is the real one?”

Luna shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows, either. All I know is that he’s a better and kinder person than everyone gives him credit for. Himself included, most likely.”

Hermione thought about how Draco changed over the course of one summer, the summer between their fifth and sixth year. Lucius went to Azkaban and suddenly Draco wasn’t the pathetic bully that they were used to showing up and tormenting them. He was paler than usual, had dark circles underneath his eyes and had gone from slender to thin. That hadn’t changed. The war may be over, but it seemed to Hermione that Draco’s war was still ongoing.

Madam Pince disturbed the three of them. As she approached, she shot a pointed look at her watch and glared at them afterwards. “The library is closing,” she said haughtily. “It’s almost curfew.”

Hermione sighed. Thanks to Draco and this conversation she didn’t finish her essay. It was due next week! Alongside Ginny she packed up her stuff. Luna never unpacked anything to begin with, so she waited for them. They exited the library silently not to annoy Madam Pince any further.

“Are you coming with to the Gryffindor common room?” Ginny asked with a look of concern that Hermione didn’t like.

She shook her head. “I want to finish this essay and the Heads common room is more quiet,” she said. “I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”


	7. Wild horses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to Draco's pov! Finally, we get some development between Hermione and Draco. I hope you like the chapter! This one was written to 'Wild horses' by the Rolling Stones.

Draco did not wait.

There were numerous reasons why he didn’t, even if he led Pansy to believe that he did. He would talk himself out of doing it if he needed to wait an entire night. He couldn’t sleep. He doubted that Granger herself was sleeping. And Granger was going to have to get used to some rule-breaking if she wanted anything to do with him, because that was what he did. He broke rules and if he didn’t do things on impulse he may never. Somehow, the two were often correlated.

As soon as Pansy wished him good night and disappeared into her own dormitory, Draco made his way to the portrait. He opened it softly and snuck through it. This sure was giving him flashbacks to his sixth year. Having been smothered with concern by Pansy, he waited until she was gone before he made his way to the Room of Requirement where he would have spent the night brooding and coming up empty. This was thankfully different, albeit may be just as much as a disaster.

He didn’t use the wand lighting charm, well aware that the portraits would be turning on him if he did. Instead, he walked down the corridor he knew for years from walking it back and forth multiple times as his eyes got used to the light. He took the main staircase, but hurried up in case he would walk into Filch or a teacher. At least with a prefect or even the Head Boy or Girl he could just say that he, too, was patrolling the corridors. What was the point of the truth if you could get away with a really good lie? He had been living by that for years.

As he had predicted, the portrait in front of the eighth year Head Boy and Girl common room was not amused to be woken up at this hour. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Draco had to mutter the password three times- “Flamel, can you get me in now or do I have to hear about how it was back in the day when students still kept to curfew? It must have been nice to come from _never, _sir.” – before he was eventually let in.

Inside of the common room, Draco was met by a bright light that made him blink in order to get used to it. Apparently Granger was still up. The common room consisted of two couches with a table in between, an armchair, a small kitchen area further up and two doors which Draco guessed lead to the bedrooms. Taking a few steps inside, he concluded that Granger must be in her room. She must have a private library there or something, he guessed.

“Granger?” he asked, raising his voice so she could hear him. “It’s me. Draco. Where are you?” It felt nonsensical to announce who he was, because who else was going to come into the common room? No one else knew the password. Granted, McGonagall could be visiting her, but surely not after curfew. And Granger was hardly the type to tell all her Gryffindor friends the password so that they could come over.

It wasn’t until he was on his way to the kitchen area to see if there was a blind corner or something that he saw where she was. She was asleep on the couch the most far away from the door, a book and parchment pressed against her chest and ink on her face. The quill had dropped to the floor next to the couch. He watched her briefly with a fond smile on his face. He liked Granger like this. She was quiet and peaceful and a mess. This version of Granger he could work with.

Instead of approach her to wake her by touching her, like anyone else might have, Draco picked up the quill and laid it down on the table between the two couches before sitting down on the table as well. Then he raised his voice. “Granger!”

Her reaction was instant. She shot up from the couch and her hand went to her wand, which she apparently kept in her pocket. The parchment and the book fell from her chest and would have hit the ground as well if Draco’s reflexes hadn’t saved them. He put them down on the table as well as Hermione turned to look at him.

“Draco?” she asked, using his first name yet again. That was starting to be a bad habit. “What are you doing here? What time is it? Oh, did I oversleep?”

Obviously, that was the thing Granger was most concerned with. Missing her classes. Draco was sorely tempted to tell her that it was lunchtime and that she missed potions, transfiguration and Salazar knew what other class she took on Friday before lunch. Unfortunately he was here to try and trying included not getting on Granger’s nerves immediately.

“It’s half past eleven,” he replied, shooting an absent-minded look at her watch as Granger sat down on the couch. “In the evening,” he clarified. “I didn’t think you’d be asleep yet, or I wouldn’t have showed up. But I guess neither did you think you would be asleep.” He grinned, and for a change it wasn’t the kind of grin that meant bad intentions. It was a genuine one.

Hermione side-eyed him, but said nothing about that remark. “I didn’t think that you would be visiting,” she said. “Or will you actually be staying here?” She lingered over looking at him briefly, making Draco realized he crossed half the castle in sweatpants and a hoodie. Well, it was a normal state of him in the common room and this was a common room too. 

“Nah,” he said, wrinkling his nose a little. “This isn’t for me. Blaise and Theo will freak if I’m not in my bed in the morning.” Theo and Blaise, the best two parents any guy could wish for.

“You’re very loyal to them,” Hermione remarked as she got up from the couch and gathered the stuff on the table that Draco had saved from falling on the ground. “And Pansy, too. I’m just going to put this stuff away.”

Draco watched her disappear into what he assumed was her room for a couple of seconds before he got up from the table and made his way over to the kitchen. He recognized the kettle and filled it with water. He probably should have asked if Hermione wanted some tea, but who didn’t drink tea before going to bed? It kind of felt like a given to him. As he waited for the kettle to boil the water, he found two tea glasses in a cupboard and some teabags in another.

When Hermione returned, she had changed out of the school robes he saw her in earlier and changed into sweatpants and a hoodie too. He smirked briefly at the sight before he got the kettle from the stove and poured them both a glass of tea.

“You’re making tea?” Hermione asked, her voice a little uncertain.

“If you don’t want yours, I’ll drink both,” he teased her gently. “But you’ll have to explain Blaise and Theo why I keep getting up out of bed to pee tonight, so think about that.”

To his surprise, she grinned about that and looked away as though to hide that fact. He shook his head a little before redirecting his attention back to the tea. He took the tea bags out and put them aside before handing one glass over to Hermione.

Together they returned to the living room area. Hermione sat down on the couch that he found her in asleep earlier, so Draco chose to keep his distance and sat down on the other couch. He took a careful sip from the tea before he put it down on the table between the couches. Hermione was looking at him expectantly. He came to her. Now he was supposed to say something. He acted on impulse, though, and had absolutely nothing prepared.

There were days that his life felt like a big improvisation show. Today was one of those days.

He took a deep breath. “I talked to Pansy, because that’s what I do. I try to handle things myself, I screw up and I come crawling back to Pansy to find a way to fix it.” Luckily that process got faster every time it happened. The first time it took him months to tell Pansy what was wrong. “She said that I had a choice. Ignore everything or try. While I am very fond of the former option, she informed me that the latter was a better choice.”

Hermione looked him up and down. She was holding the glass of tea between her hands, which seemed oddly big when held by her. He looked back at her calmly. “Luna tried to tell me the same thing,” she said. “In her own specific way. She said that you were kinder than we gave you credit for.”

Well, that wasn’t all too difficult. No one ever gave him credit for being kind, because he wasn’t. “Bloody Loony Lovegood,” he muttered under his breath, well aware that Hermione could hear him. “I’m not _kind. _I’m many things, but none of them are kind. I don’t know what she said, but she’s probably wrong. You see, I’m not cut out to be anyone’s soulmate, never mind yours.”

Hermione frowned at him for that remark. “What made you differentiate between me and anyone?” she asked. “And what makes you say that? We got off on the wrong foot, but you’re here, you made tea and you’re -” Her expression cleared, as though she suddenly understood the thing that she had been puzzled about. “You’re trying,” she finished her sentence. “Draco, I understand that none of this is easy. But you’re here.” She sounded equally shocked and in awe and Draco liked neither one of those reactions.

“I differentiate because anyone would want to be with you and no one would want to be with me. You’re everyone’s dream to be paired off with and I’m the nightmare. You should belong to someone who has themselves together. Someone who was on your side of the war. Someone who gets along with your friends immediately. Someone who hasn’t bullied you for years.” Draco took a deep breath. “Someone not me, really.”

“That sounds easy,” Hermione said. “But I don’t want easy. I’ve never done easy. If I adjusted my behaviour or my goals my life may have been easier, but I didn’t. I know what I want. What I want is to be with my soulmate, and that’s you.”

Now that was true. Granger could have chosen to run from the war like many other muggleborns, but instead she stayed and went to hunt Horcruxes with Harry Potter himself. She could have pretended to be something she wasn’t when they were younger to get along with the other students easier. She could have not wanted to know everything there was to know about the wizarding world and not be the best at everything, but she didn’t. Granger always stayed true to herself no matter what others thought. 

“Draco,” Hermione said when he didn’t respond. He looked up from where he had been staring at the ground to meet her gaze slowly. “Everyone has a soulmate. A person that’s perfectly compatible with them. It’s one of the few things in life that are a given. I’m not going to fight that and I’m hoping that neither will you.”

“I’m fighting way too much to fight that, too,” Draco replied, already looking away again. On the one hand, it felt like being soulmates with Granger out of all people was yet another decision made for him that he couldn’t deal with. But on the other hand, Granger was his choice. He choose to get into it and talk to her. He chose wanting to try. “But there is so much history between us. We’re so different. This could never work out.”

“But it will,” Granger replied, by all appearances completely convinced by that. “It’s meant to be, so it will be.” Granger’s logic on this was way too easy, Draco felt, but she seemed comfortable with it. “After this evening, I didn’t think I’d ever want to try talking to you again. But you came to find me. We both care. As long as we care and as long as we try, we can do this.”

“So where do we go from here?” Draco questioned. “What do soulmates do? What do we do?” She liked making plans and sticking to them, so he figured she should be doing exactly that. He wanted to add the jab ‘did you look that up in the library?’ but he refrained, well aware she was not going to like it. He already got in plenty of jabs earlier that evening.

“First, we get some sleep,” Granger said, a light smile on her face. “And then tomorrow, I’ll see you when I see you. I think we should take this slow. We’ll meet tomorrow evening to discuss our Head Boy and Head Girl duties. Maybe we can talk some more then.”

“You do know that you can’t fail your Head Girl duties, right?” Draco asked, his voice humorous.

To his surprise, Hermione smiled very briefly. “Yes, I’m aware,” she said. “But I think we can do something good in the world with our duties, so we should take them seriously.”


	8. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! This one took me a while due to some inspiration loss, but I'm back with another finished chapter. This one is named after the Taylor Swift song on her new album, Lover. As ever, thanks a lot for reading and I'll catch you for the next one (:

When he returned to his dormitory, there was a light still on and Blaise and Theo were sitting on Theo’s bed talking with the curtains of both beds open. When Draco pushed the door open and closed it behind them, two pairs of eyes were on him as he walked towards his own bed and took off the sweatshirt.

“Where have you been?” Blaise eventually asked. “Did you decide that brooding here wasn’t good enough and that you had to do it elsewhere for it to be productive? Because it doesn’t make a flying difference and at least you doing it here means we get sleep.”

Draco turned around to look at the two both briefly. What did he think earlier? The best two fathers anyone could wish for, other than the fact that when either Blaise or Theo disappeared from the common room it would be Draco waiting up with the one of them that hadn’t disappeared. It was a support structure that worked, but that may be strange to others.

“I was talking to my soulmate,” Draco said as he sat down onto the bed. “She’s from another house, so I went to go see her. It was a good conversation.”

The million galleons question was written all over both Theo and Blaise’s faces: _who is she? _Draco merely smirked. He sat down on the bed and pushed the blankets aside to get in. In the meantime, Theo got up from Blaise’s bed and sat down on his own bed, but his eyes were still on Draco.

“I’ll tell if you tell,” Draco said.

Their reactions were instant. Theo sighed exasperatedly and glared at him while Blaise let himself fall down onto his bed on his back and spoke. “Draco, for the love of Merlin, don’t be the difficult man we already know you are. For once in your life, just tell us without wanting anything back.”

Draco didn’t miss a beat. “It’s Hermione Granger.” And if he made his voice sound slightly sarcastic and snickered afterwards so Theo and Blaise got the wrong idea, who could blame him?

Blaise sighed. “Not letting up. I see. You’re as awkward and useless as us, then.” The words were matter-of-fact, as though Draco’s seeming lie proved all that. “Glad to see you’re still you. Good night.” He reached out for his wand to turn off the light as Theo crawled underneath the blankets as well. Not one of them usually slept with the bed curtains closed.

“Thank you. For staying up,” Draco said as Blaise turned off the lights and seemed to get underneath the blankets of his bed.

The other two were silent for a couple of seconds. Then Theo spoke. “We have each other’s backs. That’s what we do.”

As ever, it took Draco a while to fall asleep. He listened to Theo toss and turn and Blaise throw the blankets off and pull them back up, as they did. He tried not to let it bother him that he was only hearing two other people, instead of four. When they were both soundly asleep, Draco got a book and read a couple of chapters by the light of his wand until his eyelids refused to keep open any longer. That was when he curled back into his blankets and let sleep get him.

When he was woken up, it was by the sound of Blaise’s and Daphne’s voices. He turned on his side slowly and opened his eyes just enough to see Daphne sit on Blaise’s bed, a magazine in front of her face. Blaise was just doing his tie.

“What’s your zodiac sign?” he heard Daphne ask Blaise. “Witch Weekly has twelve pages about the signs and what astrology says. This sure should be more true than whatever Trelawney attempts to predict.” Said the person to take Divination as a NEWT.

Draco turned on his back, stretched slowly and pushed himself upwards afterwards. “Daph, you do know that not Trelawney nor whoever writes the astronomy section in Witch Weekly can predict anything, right?” he asked. “It’s all bullshit.”

Daphne lowered the magazine momentarily, but seemed undisturbed as she pushed a couple of pages back. “You are a Gemini. This is a great season for you to find love, Draco. All the stars are pointing towards it. Apparently your charm and sharpness will impress whoever you’re with.”

Draco got up from the bed and exchanged a glance with Blaise. They both grinned. “Daphne, I think that the signs may be a little off. Only last night Draco joked about Granger being his soulmate,” Blaise offered.

Daphne reached out to swat Draco’s right arm gently when he passed by. “Don’t joke about your soulmate, Draco. It’s very serious.”

Draco smirked as he paused in front of her. “There’s a rule in this dormitory. One rule. It goes like this: whatever we say about our soulmates in the dormitory, doesn’t leave the dormitory. Blaise broke a rule. I’ll be discussing the punishment with Theo.”

Blaise sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic,” he said. “And it was your joke, not mine.”

“You have a bad sense of humour, Draco,” Daphne called after him as he exited the dormitory. He gave her a thumbs up as a sign that he heard it and agreed.

A little later, when Draco showered and changed into his school robes, the five of them made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. Pansy was the first one to exit the common room through the portrait and Draco heard her greet someone. She looked behind her afterwards and smirked at him. Draco exited the common room after Theo and was immediately met with Hermione Granger. Theo shot a strange look at him.

“Hi,” he greeted her. “I thought I would see you this evening?”

Hermione joined him as they made their way towards the Great Hall. She was wearing her hair tied together in a ponytail today and seemed to be in a good mood, if the smile she directed at Draco was anything to go by.

“I thought you would too,” she replied. “But I got nervous. This is too fragile for me to take any chances about. So I was wondering if you wanted to sit with me for breakfast?”

Draco frowned at her. If this were a different situation, this would have been his soulmate asking him to join her for breakfast and his answer would have been an obvious yes. But this was also Hermione Granger either offering to sit at the Slytherin table or inviting him over at the Gryffindor table. Surely madam Pince would kick them out of they brought food to the library. It was raining outside, classic British weather, so Draco could assume Hermione didn’t want to take a walk over breakfast either.

“Yes, but where?” he asked. “No offence, but I’d rather be ambushed by a pack of werewolves than sit at the Gryffindor table.”

“That’s not funny,” Hermione said with a sigh. “I’m serious. I want to spent time with you. See what you’re like. Is that really too much to ask?”

Draco pressed his lips together briefly as he tried not to snap at her immediately. She was trying, he reminded herself. She was coming across a little tense because she probably was tense. He was a big flight risk and he was her soulmate. Anyone in her situation would have been tense.

“It wasn’t a joke,” he said as he folded his arms over one another uncomfortably. “Your housemates are hyenas. I can’t sit with you. But you can join us at the Slytherin table, if you like. It’ll be weird, but at least no one will openly question what you’re doing.”

As they walked into the Entrance Hall, Draco moved aside to let Blaise and Daphne pass him by. Hermione seemed to study him for a couple of seconds, clearly considering what he had just said. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll sit with the Slytherins, if you say that they won’t say anything. But you have to sit with the Gryffindors tomorrow.”

So instead of throw him in front of the wolves now, she wanted to show the wolves the snack they were missing out on and promise it to them for tomorrow? Why did she think that was a better idea? It was a worse idea for sure. That way the wolves knew what was coming and would start to speculate. Of course, Draco had never been afraid of Gryffindors, as such. They were a bunch of people with hero complexes that ran their mouths all the time, but couldn’t stand by it. It was a matter of all bark and no bite. But that didn’t mean that Draco voluntarily wanted to be around people like that.

“Fine,” Draco copied Hermione’s choice of words. “I’ll sit with the Gryffindors, but you have to sit with the Slytherins tomorrow.”

Hermione glared at him, but seemed to decide that this one wasn’t worth to start a discussion about. She adjusted the bag on her back and led the way towards the Gryffindor table. Draco’s face expression changed into the inevitable scowl as he walked after her. He sat down in front of her at the far end of the table, ready to leave as soon as he felt like he had to and glanced at the Slytherin table far in front of him, where Pansy pulled a face expression that spelled out _what are you even doing? _Like he knew.

None of the other Gryffindors seemed to realize there was an intruder in their midst yet. Hermione smiled at him and proceeded to ask one of the most shockingly normal questions that she asked him up to that moment. “What do you usually have for breakfast?”

He shrugged. “Coffee,” he offered. “Some toast, if my stomach feels up to it. But I never eat much in the morning. What about you?”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Hermione said, sounding like his mother. “When I’m at Hogwarts, I start by pouring myself some pumpkin juice and get two pieces of toast. Then I -” And that was when Hermione’s explanation of her no doubt enthralling tradition of her breakfast ritual was rudely disturbed. “Hermione, why is Malfoy sitting here?” Draco thought his name was Seamus Finnigan, but he had never paid much attention to the Gryffindors. He thought this was the hapless one that set everything on fire he pointed his wand at. Others thought it was charming. Draco just thought it was a show of incompetence as a wizard.

Hermione’s irritation about being disturbed was plain in her face expression. Draco wondered if she was also irritated because it took less than a minute for one of her housemates to make his point about them. “Because I invited him,” she said calmly before she continued her explanation of her breakfast. “As I was saying, two pieces of toast and -”

“You invited him to sit at our table?” Seamus repeated. “Why? I don’t want to sit with Death Eaters and neither should you, Hermione.” 

“Leave him alone,” Ginny Weasley said, who was sitting on Hermione’s other side and in front of Seamus. Draco frowned at her for sticking up for him, but she ignored him. “Hermione can sit with whomever she likes.”

“Why are you choosing his side? You hate him,” Seamus said, irritation plain. “We all hate him.”

“Hate is a very strong word,” Ginny said with a glance aside. “I used to hate him. But the war is over and he’s allowed to be here as much as us. You never minded it when Luna sat with us.”

“Well, Luna is great,” Dean Thomas joined the conversation. That was just what Draco needed: another muggleborn to have an opinion about where he should and should not be sitting. “And he’s a Death Eater. It’s not the same thing.”

Ignoring the discussion, Draco turned to look at Hermione. “I said they were worse than werewolves and I meant it,” he pointed out. “So if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go and drink my coffee in relative silence over at the Slytherin table, where my friends are and where people don’t point out my obvious flaws.”

He was about to get up and do exactly that when Hermione replied. “Draco, sit down. You shouldn’t listen to them. I want you to be here.”

“And they don’t want me to be here, clearly,” Draco said. The discussion between Ginny, Seamus and Dean had continued at a louder volume in the meantime. “Whereas the Slytherins don’t mind. Some of them don’t even care. Why take the difficult road when the easy one is so much more quiet?”

“I told you I never wanted easy,” Hermione said. That was starting to feel like an understatement to Draco.

Seconds later, Professor McGonagall came to break off the rather loud discussion. “I could hear the discussion all the way from the teachers’ table. What is going on here?” she asked, raising her voice. She studied the students at the table, only to frown when she saw Draco. “Mister Malfoy. Why aren’t you at your own table for breakfast?”

“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself as well, Professor,” he replied.

Hermione sighed at him. “I’ve invited him, Professor,” she said. “I thought we could sit together since we’re Head Boy and Head Girl. We wanted to divide subjects between us and see when it was best for both of our schedules to tutor, since Draco also has quidditch and I want to continue with SPEW. But others didn’t want him sitting here.”

Hermione was such a suck-up, Draco thought, but it was a good enough excuse. It was no one’s business why Granger really wanted to sit with him and why he actually kind of agreed. He did have to wonder what in the world SPEW was, but that had hardly been the point.

“Very well, then,” McGonagall said, studying the both of them. There was that look again, the look that McGonagall gave him as though she knew all of his secrets. “There is no rule against sitting at a table other than your own house table. Please keep it down from now on. That counts for you as well, Mister Finnigan.”

McGonagall left and while he heard Finnigan mutter something under his breath, the Gryffindors stayed quiet. Draco chuckled and shook his head a little. “I forgot this is how you tame lions. You play the authority card. Or rat on them to their mom. Same thing, really.” He would know. He’d done it to them for years.

Hermione sighed again, but she was also smiling a little. “You’re impossible,” she said. “Now, about breakfast, you really ought to try -”


	9. Nothing compares to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rapid update this time, with Draco's cunning plan to make his parents accept his soulmate and an encounter with Miles Bletchley's cousin leading to a conversation. Of course this chapter was named after the Prince song 'Nothing compares 2 U.' Hope you enjoy! As ever, thank you for reading, the kudos, commenting, etc. It's very much appreciated.

After a couple of days, Draco had come to the private conclusion that this thing, whatever was going on between Hermione and him, wasn’t going away. Not anytime soon. Granger was hell-bent on making it work between them for the very simple reason that he was her soulmate. It was the kind of logic that made Draco wonder why she wasn’t sorted into Ravenclaw, only to realize this was _Granger _he was thinking about. She was a spot-on Gryffindor. Like the Slytherin stereotype was prejudiced backstabbers, that of Gryffindors was idiots lacking common sense and diving headfirst into a situation. Bravery was an excuse for stupidity, and whilst Hermione wasn’t stupid per se she had done her share of stupid things that made Draco facepalm thinking about it. Whatever the case may be, Granger was there to stay, meaning that Draco had something to do.

He had to tell his parents. Now, he wasn’t a Gryffindor, so he actually had a clever and cunning plan that he intended to stick to. He had told them about his timer running out around September first, so they would know to expect some sort of update on the subject. His mother wanted him to be happy, whatever that was, and Draco could tentatively and hesitantly admit (in his own head) that he may have a shot at happiness with Granger, if they shockingly managed to work this out. Keeping secrets had never been a source of happiness in the Malfoy family, so he was going to have to tell.

The true force and mastermind behind the Malfoy family was obviously his mother. Often in the background, Draco liked to watch her orchestrate everything behind the scenes while his father made the big moves and did the talking. While people had been telling him for years he was just like his father, they could not be more off the mark. Lucius was straight-forward. You could read him like a book. How that man lied on the stand in front of the entire Wizengamot was a great question mark to Draco. Narcissa was the self-contained one. She was clever. Cunning and manipulative, maybe. But what Draco knew was that Narcissa led and Lucius followed, even if it seemed to be the other way around to the public eye. So when Draco had to convince both of his parents, he had to start with his mother.

Thankfully, he also knew the number one weakness of both of his parents: him, or more specifically, the idea that they ruined him. He remembered the discussions that Narcissa had with Bellatrix when they thought he had already gone to bed, about how he couldn’t be a Death Eater and that Narcissa didn’t want it. Later on those discussions were between Narcissa and Lucius, when he was back from Azkaban, about how they failed him, how they wanted him to be okay, how they wanted it to end. It made Draco never want to have children of his own. It also made Draco never want to disappoint them again.

In his head, Draco distinguished two versions of himself with the hope that his parents would too. Draco Without A Soulmate had been miserable. The demons in his head haunted him every waking moment and there was nothing he could do about it. Draco With A Soulmate, however, had some sort of peace of mind knowing that there was someone meant for him and that he wasn’t beyond saving. No, love didn’t conquer all, but it sure would with some of it. And if his parents saw it that way too, they’d be much more accepting of his soulmate.

A letter had to be written.

_Dear mother,_

_How are you doing? I hope father and you are well. How is the redecoration of the manor going? Will I be returning home to a different manor in the winter? Are we still hosting the New Years Eve Soiree, or will we skip hosting this year and let the honour fall to someone else? My apologies if you have already mentioned this. I have been rather absentminded lately. _

_Life at Hogwarts is bearable. Theo and Blaise are keeping an eye out for me. Pansy sends her love. I know we said we would be communicating better, so this is me trying. I met my soulmate, as I said I would. She’s lovely. She’s very different than me. But we’re also trying. We have breakfast every morning, sometimes at my house table and sometimes at hers. Sometimes we study together. She’s very clever. She’s great. I have hope that you will think the same thing._

_I hope to hear from you soon. Tell father that I said hi. _

_Much love,_

_Draco_

As he wrote the address of the manor on the backside in big, swirly letters, he caught the sound of a couple of voices. His letter writing place of choice had been an alcove in the library, carefully hidden away. Not many people knew about its existence. It was one of the upsides of having been at this school so long and having played one form of hide and seek or the other for years. He didn’t recognize the voices, though, and the conversation didn’t sound particularly friendly.

“Isn’t your family all Death Eaters?” the first voice asked. “They were in Slytherin.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” a second voice protested.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your family should be in Azkaban. Surely you know what that is, Bletchley? The wizarding prison?”

Bletchley? That wasn’t Miles’ voice for sure, which meant that this had to be the cousin that Pansy pointed out to him. The first year. Draco was fast to get up and make his way towards the voices after he put the letter between his Transfiguration books and put them in his back.

Miles’ cousin, a Ravenclaw, was cornered by three Gryffindors, two of which had their wands out. When Draco approached they were fast to put them away and smile, but Draco had both seen and heard the entire spectacle.

He studied them for a couple of seconds. “People tell me that Gryffindors are known for their bravery,” he said. “Three against one isn’t very brave, is it? And neither is spreading lies about someone you don’t even know anything about beyond their family name. Pathetic is more like it. So, want to tell me my family should be in Azkaban?”

With a sarcastic face expression, his arms folded over one another and at least three inches taller than the tallest kid standing in front of him, Draco could imagine that he was intimidating. He was pleased when the student most nearby him took a step back and bumped into one of the other ones.

“We were just messing around,” the tallest one of the three said. “We didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Well, that messing around that you didn’t mean anything by just got you a week’s worth of detention, congratulations,” Draco said matter-of-fact. “I’ll see to it that a Gryffindor prefect is informed. She’ll see you after dinner.”

“But -” one of the students began.

“No,” Draco interrupted with a slight shake of his head. “I can make it two weeks if you finish that sentence or explain to me that Azkaban is a matter to joke about.”

They heard footsteps again. Draco was afraid that it would be Madam Pince ready to kick them all out of the library for being noisy. That would be ironic, considering Draco was acting as Head Boy to make sure some of the other students were making less, or at least less stupid, noise. Fortunately it wasn’t madam Pince, but Padma Patil who came to see what the noise was about.

“Draco?” she said, clearly surprised to find him there. “What’s going on? I was trying to do the Transfiguration essay.”

“These three Gryffindor heroes were bullying a first year,” Draco replied. “But they were just leaving, unless they want another week of detention.” That was their cue. They were quick to leave this part of the library. Not much later Draco heard Madam Pince scold at them for running through the library and he chuckled to himself.

Padma still seemed puzzled, but she didn’t ask what was on her mind. Instead, she turned to look at the girl that had been bullied. “What’s your name? Do you want to sit with us while you do your homework?”

“Grace,” she said, a little smile on her face. “It’s okay. I should go back to the common room.”

Padma and Draco watched her walk away as well. It wasn’t until she was out of earshot that Padma glanced aside at him as they both walked after her. “I didn’t know you used your prefect privileges for good these days,” she said, the words matter-of-fact.

Draco grinned humorously, not bothered to correct her on the fact that he was in fact Head Boy. “It’s a new development. Apparently it’s called being a decent human being. I’m trying it, but the jury’s still out on whether or not I like it.” As Padma arrived back at the table that she had been studying at, Draco realized he would have to see to it that the three Gryffindors got detention. “Padma, do we know anyone that’s a Gryffindor prefect?”

Padma grinned. “Hermione Granger,” she replied.

“Oh, fuck me,” Draco muttered under his breath. According to Padma’s growing grin she heard him. “Well. I guess I’ll have to pay Gryffindor’s precious princess a visit. Thanks, Padma.”

Padma went back to doing her Transfiguration homework and Draco left the library, greeting Madam Pince as he passed by the desks, only to chuckle at the way she shushed him. He hadn’t seen Hermione at the library, meaning that she had to be at the Heads common room. He told the portrait the password, which seemed mildly impressed that he wasn’t there after curfew this time, and stepped inside of the common room. Hermione was sitting on one of the couches reading.

“Hey,” he greeted as the portrait door closed behind him. He walked into the living room area and sat down on the other couch, putting his bag down on the floor. He studied her for a couple of seconds, the way she was seated on the couch and how she lowered the book to be able to look at him, and sighed. “I’m sorry.” The words left his mouth before he was consciously aware of it, but they were out regardless.

Hermione frowned at him before putting the book down on the table between the two couches. “What for?” she asked.

“For bullying you.” The words came out matter of fact. “When we were younger. When I yet had to realize that all blood was the same and that spilling of it just is a waste, regardless of whose it is.” That lesson Draco had learned. The more blood he saw, the more he came to resent the apparent necessity of it. He also learned, not because of the outcome of the war but during the war, that blood didn’t matter all that much. Watching the side that had the most purebloods with them lose the war reinforced the impression, not form it.

“That’s -” Hermione hesitated. He was pretty sure she was about to say something like ‘okay’ or ‘fine’ but realized that it wasn’t any of those things. “Where does this come from, Draco?”

“I saw three Gryffindors bully a Ravenclaw for her heritage,” he said. “I gave them detention and figured I should tell a Gryffindor prefect, seeing that they’re from your house.”

It had never been like that for Draco. He usually got away with what he did, reinforcing the impression that he was right about Hermione’s blood. His father said it, the Slytherins took his side when he repeated it and Snape seemed to support it. He knew now that he was wrong, of course, but back then it had just been something to humiliate her about rather effectively. By the time the war actually started to matter, Draco had been too occupied with the Death Eaters and his task to spend any time making fun of Gryffindors.

“And it made you think of you?” Hermione queried.

“A little,” Draco said. “It also made me think that you Gryffindors aren’t saints and that you shouldn’t be treated like it. These kids acted like anyone with family that was in Slytherin was a Death Eater. Not even all Blacks were Death Eaters. I thought you lot were supposed to be better than us, not lowering yourself to do what we do the moment you get the opportunity. You stereotype us as much as we do with you.”

“You’re acting like every single Gryffindor is like that,” Hermione said softly. “I never -”

“But didn’t you?” Draco interrupted, eyebrows raising. “Fifth year. Your stupid Dumbledore’s Army allowed no Slytherins. Why? Because you stupidly thought that all Slytherins would rat you out to Umbridge. And in the end we did, but we did it because you started a club without us and because Potter named our fathers as Death Eaters in the Quibbler, not because we would have anyway.”

That was the flaw in Hermione’s, and every Gryffindor’s as far as Draco was concerned, _holier than thou _way of thinking. They weren’t. They were just never told that they weren’t. This wasn’t about Draco, and Crabbe and Goyle and Pansy, being anything but saints in their younger years. This was about the fact that the Gryffindors weren’t just innocent in their exhausting house rivalry either.

“But what would you have done if we told you that we were starting a secret club against Umbridge to learn Defence Against the Dark Arts?” Hermione asked, her voice still soft.

“Made fun of you, at first,” Draco replied truthfully. “I don’t know what we would have done, because we never got the chance. Doesn’t mean that it would have been wrong. All I know is that in sixth year, I was wishing I knew more Defence Against the Dark Arts than I did. Theo, too. And in seventh year, all of us did.”

“Draco -” Hermione started.

Draco stood up. “I have to go. I agreed to meet Blaise at the pitch.” With that, he got his bag from the ground and slung it over his shoulders again, making his way towards the portrait again.

“Draco -” Hermione had gotten up as well and walked after him. When he turned around to look at her, right in front of the portrait, she was standing right in front of him. She was at least two inches smaller than him and had to look up at him to be able to look him in the eye. What she did afterwards required no eye contact, though, even if Draco was sure she had to stand on her toes to do it.

Hermione leaned in and kissed him. It was short, fleeting, hardly more than a couple of seconds, not enough for Draco to reach out and hold her, not at all long enough. She leaned her forehead against his for a couple of seconds afterwards, and when Draco opened his eyes to meet hers she pulled back.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”


	10. Team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Welcome back for another chapter. This time one in which Blaise uses the phrase 'no offence' and genuinely means it and wanting to sleep in the Hogwarts library. The title of this chapter refers to Lorde's song. As ever, thank you for reading, commenting, the kudos and the bookmarks. Your kind comments inspire me to keep going. I hope you enjoy!

The Slytherin house had a number of traditions that the other houses usually didn’t know anything about. That made sense, Draco thought, seeing as they were the house that valued tradition. The most well-known one was that no one from another house was allowed inside of their common room. It had been like that for centuries now and it was something they took very seriously. Draco always commented that Slughorn shouldn’t be allowed in either because of he betrayed the fraternity principle of their house time and time again. The man was a Slytherin in his own way, that was clear enough, but not in a way beneficial to his house.

Another one of those traditions was the parties that they were guilty of throwing at the end of the first week of every school year. Guilty of, yes, because Draco had thought time and time again that they were traumatizing the new first years, while in reality they were giving them a preview of what they would be facing the upcoming seven years. A lot of students in their house were Sacred 28 and most of them belonged to the upper class. If there was one thing they were notorious for, it may as well be throwing parties for every occasion possible. Sometimes they didn’t even need an excuse. It was a habit that was apparently taken over by the Slytherins decades ago.

That Saturday, the party was the breakfast talk. Granger wasn’t there yet, so Draco had sat down with his friends at the very end of the Slytherin table and was stirring through his coffee (he took it black, so there wasn’t much of a use in stirring to begin with) while Pansy and Blaise discussed the history of their parties.

“I still think the party in fifth year after the quidditch win against Ravenclaw was the best one,” Pansy said. “We really learned how to party in that year. We were too young to grasp the subject before them. And there wasn’t much to party about in fourth year.”

“I’m pretty sure that party was the one with the win against Hufflepuff,” Blaise said. “Did we even win from Ravenclaw that year?” Both Pansy and Blaise looked at Draco, who shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t like he could recall every match he played for the team. “Doesn’t matter. Does anyone know if Slughorn will be away for the weekend?”

“It won’t make a difference,” Draco said. “He’s not going to come into the common room. He’s afraid to be associated with us because we’re the losers of the war.” Blaise rolled his eyes quite openly at that remark and Pansy sighed. “What, am I wrong? Has there been a moment this week that you haven’t seen that man suck up to a Gryffindor?”

“Maybe when he was sucking up to Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs,” Pansy said. “But we’re not the losers of the war and you ought to quit calling us and yourself that. You didn’t lose. You survived. The side that you were with lost, but that’s not the same thing.”

How was that not the same thing? Draco was a Death Eater, he had the Mark, had done some truly horrifying things that he could never forget and he doubted his victims could and the only reason he wasn’t in Azkaban was his mother. Sure, he was irritated with Slughorn because he missed Snape and had hoped to have someone in Slytherin’s corner because they could use it, but that didn’t mean the way their Head of House acted was acceptable.

“Screw Slughorn,” Draco said, just at the moment that Hermione sat down beside him and frowned at him. “Never mind, his biggest fan just joined us for breakfast. I wouldn’t dare to say anything wrong about our wonderful Potions master.”

“You’re in a mood,” Hermione said, who seemed to be well-used to Draco’s supposedly witty remarks by now. “I’m his biggest fan because I was delighted to have a teacher that didn’t dislike me for knowing the answers to his questions and dislike my friends as well for no particular reason? Anyone teaching Potions after Snape would have been a welcome breath of fresh air, Draco.”

“Maybe he’s your biggest fan,” Draco muttered under his breath, decidedly not getting into why that bothered him. Snape and Slughorn truly were two opposite ends of the same spectrum of Potions teachers they had. “Snape was a better teacher. You and I both did better at Potions when he still taught. By some miracle Potter was the best of the class when Slughorn started teaching after having shown zero talent for Potions for five years, so you can’t argue Slughorn didn’t play favourites blatantly.”

Hermione seemed to hesitate what to say. Draco noticed that she did that more often, as though filtering what she was about to say before saying it. He ought to try to do the same sometime, but Slughorn was a subject that really pissed him off. “How do you know that my Potions grades were worse under Slughorn than they were under Snape?” she asked at last.

“I pay attention,” Draco said shortly. While Potions had been his best subject, he knew very well that Hermione wasn’t far behind on that score. And when Slughorn started to teach Draco wasn’t bothered to try very hard anymore, so he had some time to observe others and what he observed was that Hermione was struggling unusually with her potions.

“Granger, no offence,” Blaise said, “but what are you doing here? This is the second time this week you’re sitting with us. Not that I don’t like Draco getting worked up before he finished his first cup of coffee,” Draco pulled a face at him, that Blaise ignored, “that’s a real delight, but I’ve never seen you sit with us before.”

“I’m trying to support house unity,” Hermione said with a smile.

“I invited her,” Pansy added. “I realized that hostility was only going to make a bad situation even worse, so I tried kindness.”

Blaise stared at Pansy. Draco snorted with laughter in his coffee. 

While he was coughing, Hermione patted him on his back calmly. By the time he was done coughing, the conversation had already continued, as Hermione asked if there was anything on the agenda this weekend, resulting in Pansy and Blaise exchanging a gaze.

“We’re having a party,” Pansy said matter-of-fact. “In our common room. It’ll most likely involve drinking games, shots and hangovers in the morning. It’s tradition.”

“That sounds -” Hermione seemed unsure what it sounded like, exactly. Draco couldn’t blame her. “Fun? I don’t think our common room parties were a lot like yours. I don’t think ours involve drinking games and I’ve never seen any of us hungover.”

“We’re part of the Sacred 28, Hermione,” Pansy said in a light voice. “We’re born with a right to at least one party per month. It’s part of the lifestyle of the wealthy and the spoiled.” Where was the joke, really?

When Draco and Hermione left the Great Hall a little later to go studying, Hermione addressed him the moment that they were out of earshot from any other students. “I didn’t think the Sacred 28 still meant anything to anyone,” she said. “I always thought that when people said Slytherins valued tradition, it was a nice way of saying they were all blood purists. But that’s not true, is it?”

“We’re old-fashioned, that’s what that means,” Draco said with a light chuckle. “Blood purity is still a part of that for some of the Sacred, I reckon. But it’s much more than that. It’s the same soirees every year, it’s age-old alliances between families, it’s constantly renovating and redecorating old manors. Passing down heirlooms I think is part of that culture too.”

Hermione glanced at the ring around Draco’s ring finger on his left hand briefly, but didn’t ask. Instead, she asked a question that Draco thought may have been bothering her for a while as well. “What about your parents? You’re my soulmate, and we’re trying, but there’s a limit to trying if they’re still blood purists, Draco.”

He smiled at her very briefly. He looked behind him briefly to see if anyone was around, and when he concluded they were alone he wrapped an arm over Hermione’s shoulders. They continued their walk towards the library. “My parents are struggling,” he said. “They’re trying to keep it together in front of me, but their belief system is shattered as much as mine is. They’re starting to realize we are blood traitors for betraying the Dark Lord. Self-preservation trumps tradition, as it turns out.” With a grin, he added: “You shouldn’t worry about my parents. I have a plan.” A plan that involved manipulating his mother into being happy for him without knowing who he was with, maybe, but a plan regardless.

“What about yours?” he asked her when she didn’t say anything. “Did you write them? Did you explain the soulmates concept, or do muggles have that too?”

She still didn’t say anything, which was highly unusual for Hermione Granger. When he looked at her she seemed to be deep in thoughts. Draco stopped walking and moved to stand in front of her, looking down so he could look straight at her. “Hermione?” he asked. “Where’s your mind at?”

“In Australia,” she said after a couple of seconds. He didn’t know what that meant, so he waited until she explained. “When I realized that I was going Horcrux hunting with Harry and Ron, I knew my parents wouldn’t be safe. The Death Eaters would surely try to find them as soon as they found out I was with Harry and Ron.”

Draco thought he remembered that. After the incident at Malfoy Manor over Easter, with a lack of a better word, the Death Eaters decided to pay the Weasleys another visit to intimidate them. They also went to look for Hermione’s parents, but they were nowhere to be found. Back then, Draco assumed they didn’t look well enough. They were purebloods trying to find someone in the muggle world; it was a mission doomed to fail. Looking at Hermione like this, struggling to find words, he suddenly doubted that it had been a coincidence that they hadn’t been able to find the Grangers.

“Hermione, what did you do to your parents?” he asked calmly.

“I modified their memories,” she said softly, looking down at the ground. “I made them believe they were two other people that dreamt of immigrating to Australia. That was what they did. They were safe there. But they don’t know they had a daughter.”

Draco had thought it before and would most likely be thinking it again: children did insane things to protect their parents. He was exhibit A – joining the Death Eaters and desperately attempting to kill one of the greatest wizards that once lived surely had been a suicide mission – and standing in front of him was exhibit B. He wanted to be impressed with the magic that she performed to make the memory charm stick just so he wouldn’t have to get into the feelings part, but unfortunately he wasn’t enough of a heartless bastard for that.

“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” he said genuinely before he drew her into his arms slowly. When she wrapped her arms around him in return, Draco ran his hands over her back in a soothing gesture. They stood like that in the middle of the hallway for a minute or so. The only time he saw someone approach he glared at them over Hermione’s back, which was plenty of incentive for them to turn the other way and find another route to their destination.

When Hermione let go again, she smiled at him weakly. Draco beat her to speaking. “I have no doubt about how strong your memory charms are, but it has got to be reversible,” he said. “The Ministry has obliviators who specialized in memory charms. I bet they can help you.” 

“Thanks, Draco,” she said, “but I think I have to fix this myself.”

“But you don’t, though,” he replied. “You have this hero complex that makes you think you carry the weight of the world on your own two shoulders. You run after people,” Harry and Ron, mostly, but she could fill that in by herself, “to fix their messes, thinking you’re the only one that can. You have to let others help you. The wizarding world adores you. They’d be happy to help out and you’d have your parents back in no time. Just write the Ministry or ask McGonagall if you can visit. She’ll help you out, too.”

Hermione smiled again. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Now, can we get to the library? I want to bet my favourite seat is taken by now. I don’t like sitting elsewhere.”

“Oh no,” Draco said with a theatrical sigh, recognizing that this was the most Hermione was going to let him say on the matter of her parents. “Now you’ll have to sit in a place you don’t know. Oh, wait. You basically live in the library. You know all the spots.”

Hermione chuckled lightly and shook her head. ”If I could sleep in the library, I probably would,” she said. “Much more handy than dragging books back and forth and having Madam Pince complain about the limit of books you can borrow at the same time. Can you believe there’s a limit? One time I was doing extra research for a Potions project and -”

He wasn’t really hearing what she was saying any more, but for a change it wasn’t because he didn’t care. Rather, he was watching her talk and he was smiling to himself about it, privately concluding that he liked her when she was passionate about a subject. It made her more relatable, somehow.


	11. Swingin' party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! So it's been a while, but inspiration found me suddenly and here's the chapter I couldn't get right the first time (or, three times) I tried. Hermione will be present again in the next chapter, but this one is fully Draco & Slytherin centric. The title refers to another Lorde song that just fit the vibe for me. And of course, as ever, many thanks for reading, commenting, leaving kudos etc. I appreciate it loads. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this! Have a lovely day!

On Saturday evening, the Slytherin common room looked like Draco liked it best: dimly lit, music loud and crowded with the older years that were dancing or drinking to celebrate that they made it through the first week. Most of the furniture had been magically shoved to one side or the other to create room for the dance floor and charms were cast to make sure no one could hear the music and the conversations from outside of the common room. It looked like it always had, only with different students. The atmosphere was largely the same, the booze tasted the same and Draco was with the same company as always.

“Remember when Spin the Bottle used to be the highlight of the parties?” Daphne asked. She was sitting with Blaise on one of the two couches that were pushed against the walls nearby the portrait. Pansy and Draco took the other couch and Theo sat down on one of the tables, his feet swaying back and forth in an irregular rhythm.

Draco looked behind him to the dancing crowd and smiled lightly. That he remembered. It was a good time. He wouldn’t dream of joining now, though, seeing the only person that he should be kissing was currently either with her Gryffindor friends or studying. He supposed that was what Daphne meant. It used to be the highlight. Now this was the highlight: sitting and talking with their friends.

“Nah,” Pansy said, swinging her legs over Draco’s lap. “Seven minutes in heaven. That was the highlight of these parties.” She looked at Draco suggestively, who merely chuckled. He knew exactly what she was referring to. Alcohol on their breaths. Clumsy hands. Heated kisses. Teeth clenching together. Noses bumping. Those good old times.

“How many of your crushes did you get to snog by cheating during Spin the Bottle?” Blaise asked Pansy, eyebrows raising as though the words were a challenge

She looked at him for a couple of seconds. “Two,” she said then. 

Blaise wasn’t done. “Who?” he asked.

“I’m not telling,” Pansy replied, only to shoot up from the couch. “Wait here,” she said before she almost literally ran in the direction of the table with booze. Usually, when Pansy had an epiphany that included booze it was bad news for all of them. It meant that someone was getting drunk and that secrets were going to be spilled.

“Where does she think we’re going?” Draco said, frowning a little. “I’m not moving until I have to drag myself up the stairs to go to bed.” 

“Maybe she thinks you’re planning to go to bed early,” Daphne replied, her eyes dancing. “That you’re not the party lover that you used to be.” Well, they hadn’t seen much of each other the past summer, but what they had seen made it very clear that none of them quite lost the habit. When they met, it was usually at parties and it wasn’t unlike them to be the last ones to leave.

Of course, it fit right in with their ways of coping with the war. Whereas they all had their own preferences – dancing until the sun came up, drinking, hooking up, smoking or judging people to make them feel better about themselves – of coping mechanism, it all came neatly together in crowded bars or dance floors alike. At school it wasn’t going to be like that. There was very little stuff to smoke, very little to drink in comparison, dancing could only be done during parties and hooking up was simply a no-go unless you found the right person. That left judging people, and Draco was sure they all did that constantly at least.

“Oh yea, absolutely,” Draco agreed dryly. “I’m just here because I don’t want to deprive you all of my wonderful company, but I’m surely going to bed in another ten minutes.” It wasn’t even midnight yet. Draco doubted that any of them kept those hours. Theo or Daphne, perhaps, who were the easiest sleepers out of all of them, but even Theo Draco had heard toss and turn a lot the past couple of days.

That was when Pansy returned with a full bottle of Firewhiskey and five glasses. She handed out the glasses and poured them all full before sitting back down on the couch beside Draco. Four pairs of eyes were looking at her expectantly, so of course she made a show out of it. She sat up straight and eyed everyone before clearing her throat, ignored the way that Draco rolled his eyes, and smiled then. “I love all of you,” she declared dramatically.

Draco interrupted. “Okay, if that’s what you needed booze for, I am going to bed,” he said and pretended to be standing up.

Pansy glared at him. “Sit down, I haven’t even started yet.” She swatted his arm playfully when he was about to beat her to speaking again. “I love you all, but for such close friends we keep a lot of secrets from each other. I feel like we all have a chance of exploding because of how much we keep inside and just don’t discuss. Therefore, I am introducing a new drinking game: drink or spill.”

“Why do I feel like it’s not drinks we’ll be spilling?” Theo asked.

“You, kind sir, are correct,” Pansy said with a devious grin. “The game is very simple. A question gets asked, and the person it’s been asked to can either drink or spill their secrets. But, and here’s the catch, you can’t drink twice in a row. You’ll have to spill at least once every two questions. You’re welcome to spill more, of course.”

Draco already knew the entire evening was going to be a trainwreck. He was with the only four people that he could possibly trust with his secrets and they were all clever and cunning enough to get to know exactly what they wanted to know. Daphne and Theo both already looked like they were trying to puzzle out ways to put the right questions at the right moments. Pansy looked aside at him and grinned brightly, clearly very pleased with herself.

And what wouldn’t Draco like to know about the others. Theo was a closed book in comparison to the others, so Draco had ammunition for days there. Blaise seemed overconfident, but Draco knew exactly what subjects the other could stammer over. Daphne, generally outgoing and friendly, had her things that she didn’t talk about and avoided. The obsession with the stars and signs had to come from somewhere. And Pansy, arguably the most open of them all, was very good at diverting the attention to other people.

“Okay, all of you are looking like you’re thinking harder than you are in class,” Blaise said, shaking his head. “I know we’re retaking the year, but I doubt it’s that easy.” Before anyone could beat him to it, he continued: “I’m going first. Theo, where do you keep your stash?”

Theo didn’t do so much as blink before downing the drink, earning him a volley of laughter. Theo was really gambling by drinking so soon, because Draco thought it was a rather mild question to start with and one Draco knew the answer to at that. Beside him Pansy looked genuinely surprised as well, but Theo wasn’t letting them linger over it for long and turned to look at Daphne.

“Who did you have a crush on when you were younger?” he asked her. The small grin on his lips implied that he was waiting to see a suspicion get confirmed.

Daphne tried not to flinch, but failed. She pulled a face at Theo and sighed. Looking down at her filled glass contemplatively, she decided to reply. “Blaise,” she said with an eye-roll. “But I’m over it.” She didn’t give them any chance to respond other than wolf whistle, and fired out the next question immediately. “Draco, who’s your soulmate?”

“Granger,” Draco replied truthfully and without thinking. As used as he was to denying everything as a first response and lying through his teeth when he had to, he was also very good at promptly telling the truth around those that he actually trusted. “Blaise, what -”

“Granger?!” both Daphne and Blaise repeated at the same time. Daphne looked at Pansy pointedly. “He’s lying. You can’t cheat in this game. He should drink for lying.” In the meantime, Pansy and Theo exchanged a glance that implied the both of them already knew he wasn’t. They probably hadn’t expected for Draco to blurt it out the way he had.

“It’s true,” Pansy said after a few seconds of careful consideration. “You can’t cheat. That’s not allowed. So are you going to drink now, Draco?” It sounded like she thought he hadn’t thought this one through and was giving him an out. It was very kind and considerate of her and more than he deserved because he blurted it out himself, but he didn’t need the out.

“No, I’m not going to drink,” Draco said, still unbothered. “My soulmate is Hemione Granger. That’s why she’s been sitting with us and trying to get to know us and talk to us.” Talk a lot, for that matter of fact. Granger was very chatty in the early morning. Draco was very slowly getting used to that, just as she seemed to get used to the fact that he needed time to wake up in the early morning.

“Everything suddenly makes so much sense now,” Blaise said slowly, staring at him. He took a sip of his drink, forgetting it was meant to be for the game. “I can’t believe you’re actually trying the soulmate thing. You two are like fire and ice.”

Daphne seemed to think about that. She liked symbolism like that. “Draco’s ice,” she commented. “And she’s fire. But that’s why it works. They’re so ridiculously different that they could learn a lot from each other.”

“Stop psycho-analyzing my very new and fragile relationship during a drinking game,” Draco commented, glaring at both of them. He emptied his glass for the sake of it and offered it outwards to Pansy for her to refill, which she did. He was tempted to empty the next one as well, but refrained. “Blaise. What would you say is your biggest indulgence?”

“I can’t believe you’re just going to talk over this revelation,” Blaise said, shaking his head. “No, scratch that. I can’t believe you said it.” That wasn’t an answer, however, and Blaise seemed to realize that too. “Spending time with my soulmate,” he said, looking right at Draco briefly before turning to look at Pansy. “Pansy, did you ever have a crush on anyone in this room?”

In an answer, Pansy gestured next to her, at Draco, and was subsequently booed by Blaise and Daphne while Theo chuckled. Draco just shrugged his shoulders. Pansy leaned back with a smile. “You should have phrased your question differently, darling,” she said. “You should have asked if I ever had a crush of someone you don’t know of yet. But you didn’t, and now it’s my turn.” Draco chuckled at Blaise’s eye roll heavenwards. Pansy ignored both the eye roll and the chuckle. “Theo, what’s going on with your timer?”

An obligatory answer, because Theo already used his out for the question about his stash. Despite of that, Theo took his time replying. He studied all of them first, narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his nose and replied at last. “It’s running,” he said. “Running out in a couple of weeks. It’s very confusing. I narrowed it down to the day and the hour, but it’s just an ordinary school day in early October.” He paused to take a small sip. “I’m not very good at counting, mind you.”

That was more than Draco expected Theo to say on the matter, but he was glad that his friend was sharing as much. Pansy nodded slowly, clearly satisfied with the reply as well, and Theo turned his gaze to look between Daphne and Blaise. “Daphne, who’s your soulmate?” he asked.

Predictably, Daphne emptied her glass.

Predictably, many more glasses were emptied that evening. Theo still refused to give up the location of his stash, Pansy avoided talking about any more of her former crushes and Blaise admitted to having been in love with a Gryffindor girl once for a very brief period of time. They learned all about Daphne’s summer love in France and tried fishing about Draco kissing Granger, but he didn’t talk.

Predictably, it got very late. Inevitably, they would end up surfacing very late in the morning the next day.


	12. Basket case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers! Welcome back for chapter 12. Before it begins, I would like to address something quickly, and this is that Draco is (and will always be) a controversial character. He's not in any way the hero of the story & he doesn't suddenly get along with Hermione or anyone he couldn't stand previously. This also means that he's going to say and do things that we (as the writer + readers) don't necessarily agree with. However, this doesn't need pointing out or arguing against in the comments, for (I presume) we are all aware of these facts! This fic is mostly from his pov, so we'll see descriptions of things how he sees them rather than how they are. That aside, this chapter coincidentally has the same name as my Draco playlist: Basket case, of course the wonderful song by Green Day. Oh, and I have plans for a Hermione-Draco centric chapter for the next one (just them, nothing else), so that'll hopefully be up next week! And as ever, thanks so much for the kudos, bookmarks & reactions. Hope everyone is having a great week!

The next morning, Draco woke up to a blonde head of curls in Blaise’s bed (he was unsure if Blaise was laying in his own bed as well, as the curtains were drawn half-shut) and a hungover Theodore Nott sitting in a windowsill smoking. Half was what he expected, half wasn’t. He didn’t comment. Instead, he declined the offer of a drag of Theo’s joint, took a long shower and changed into a jumper and jeans. One of the many joys of it being Sunday was that they weren’t obligated to wear the school uniform and it meant that Draco wasn’t going to bother.

He left the dormitory after putting on the heirlooms and made his way towards the Great Hall for lunch. Once he arrived he laid eyes on another unusual spectacle: Pansy and Hermione were sitting at the Slytherin table together, having lunch and chatting away. He paused in the doorway and glared at it for a couple of seconds to see if maybe his imagination was making him see things, but when he blinked they were still there. Many things could be blamed on the booze, but this situation wasn’t one.

It was with a shake of his head to himself that he made his way over to the Slytherin table and sat down beside Granger. “Good morning,” he greeted as he brought a hand up to push damp hair back.

Pansy shook her head, her dark hair getting in front of her face as she did. She pushed it back impatiently. “Not good, definitely not good,” she said. “I have a terrible headache. Hermione says to drink water, but no amount of water in the world is going to fix this.”

“And neither is it morning,” Granger remarked in between bites of her toast, the words completely matter of fact. “It passed twelve half an hour ago, Draco. The party must have been really good if you wasted half a day sleeping when you could have been studying.”

Well, now he knew why they were soulmates. They had the exact same priorities. Studying first, bothering your soulmate second and everything else third. She really would do well loosening up a little, because surely an attitude like that couldn’t be healthy.

“I have been awake less than half an hour and both of you are attacking me,” Draco muttered. “For the love of Merlin, give me some time to wake up.” With that, he stretched a little and reached out for the coffee nearby, which he poured and took a very long sip of. “First off, a day is good when I see either one of you, so this qualifies. And second of all, I’m a night person and there is such a thing as brunch. I have been dragged to too many brunches in my life not to use it as an excuse.”

Granger looked aside at him briefly, a little grin on her face. He wondered what she was thinking. With Pansy he never had to wonder, because she usually said what she thought aloud and if she didn’t it was written all over her face. That moment was no exception. “Oh, you should take her to brunch,” she said enthusiastically, only to pull a face at the too loud sound of her own voice. She carried on regardless. “I don’t know who’s hosting next, but there has to be a brunch soiree sometime around Christmas, right?”

Draco glared at Pansy, who didn’t understand what she did or said wrongly. She shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of whatever her beverage of choice was. When Draco still gave her an icy glare, she talked over it as though she never said it. “Thank you though, darling, for saying that I am a highlight of your day.”

“You know it,” Draco replied, adjusting immediately as well. From the corner of his eye he could see Granger look between them as though trying to figure out what just happened.

She didn’t get much of a chance to do that. “By the way,” Pansy said, reaching out for something in her bag, “a letter came from you with owl post this morning. You weren’t here and your family owl knows I’ll give it to you. Here.” With that, she handed him an envelope with familiar handwriting on the front. Draco nodded briefly. That was what he had been expecting.

He took another sip of his coffee and looked aside at Granger then. “I was surprised to see you at the Slytherin table without me,” he said, pretending to sulk about that fact briefly. “And here I thought it was all for me, but it turns out you actually want to hang out with Pansy.”

It seemed like Granger needed to take a few seconds to figure out whether or not he was actually serious and her words didn’t imply if she believed him or not. “She’s your best friend, Draco. I figured if we want this to work, I should get along with your friends and you should get along with mine.”

Pansy and him exchanged another glance. Draco shook his head at Pansy, and subsequently Pansy was very busy studying the eggs on her plate. This was not the time to remind Granger that Draco loathed Harry Potter and everything he stood for. From the trio, it was Granger that he tried to hate the most. Her blood status made that very easy, as well as her know-it-all behaviour that confirmed Draco’s idea that she was trying so hard because she knew she didn’t fit in. Right now, with his blood purity belief system shattered, Draco was seeing flashes from why everybody else seemed to adore Granger. She was bossy, a know-it-all and very irritating about both of those things, but she was also absolutely brilliant.

Granted, he could have done without the hero complex, but couldn’t everyone always?

“I could get along with Loony,” Draco said. “You’re friends with Lovegood, right? I could deal with small amounts of Loony Lovegood if I have to.” Truth be told, he was pretty sure that Hermione was friends with no-one who had the ability to think past their own bias other than Luna.

Granger side-eyed him, something that made Draco chuckle despite himself. “Draco, if you want to get along with her, you may not want to call her Loony,” she suggested dryly.

“Note taken,” he said. Granger smiled. 

That was when Pansy piped up again, dark eyes studying the both of them. “Speaking of friends. Are the two of you going to be attending the first Hogsmeade weekend together, or are you seeing people from outside of school, Hermione?”

Granger looked aside at him. “Do you want to go?” she asked with a little smile on her face, leaning in to touch his hand briefly.

Draco didn’t know if he wanted to go. He tried asking girls out to Hogsmeade weekends and making out with them at Madam Puddifoot’s over tea, but he doubted that was what Granger was in for. They were still trying to establish if they could stand each other at all, so they were hardly going to snog in public. That and he doubted that either one of them would be comfortable in Madam Puddifoot’s between all the clingy couples. That left The Three Broomsticks to go for a drink, and Draco was pretty sure that Madam Rosmerta would throw him out if she saw him in her bar. No one would ever go to the Hog’s Head, of course. He wouldn’t if he got paid to be there.

“Maybe you should go see your friends,” Draco suggested. “I see you every day. I mean, it’d be unfair to them for me to monopolize your Hogsmeade weekends, because they never get to see you. Don’t think they’d like me any better if I did that.”

Because Draco was looking at Granger, he didn’t see Pansy shake her head at him, clearly telling him to stop talking because he was saying the wrong thing. Granger nodded and seemed to agree, though.”Good point,” she said. “I’d rather drink a cup of tea with you in the evening again. You make great tea, Draco.”

“Well, we can do that as well,” he said with a light grin. He returned the gesture of touching her hand, but held onto it this time. “And if you can part from your school books for an hour, we can get some food from the kitchens and -” That was when he trailed off because he saw two figures approach the table that were not supposed to be there. His hand went to his wand almost immediately and he backed away defensively, leaving Granger surprised as he let go of her hand.

“Draco, what are you -” Granger started, but was interrupted.

“Hermione? What are you doing here?” That was Ronald Weasley’s voice, who was not for any reason whatsoever supposed to be here and disturb whatever date Draco was trying to plan with his soulmate. “We looked for you in the common room and even in the library,” but if he made a library joke she was mad at him, “and then at the Gryffindor table, but we couldn’t find you. That was when Luna said you may be here.” Weasley sounded puzzled, so nothing out of the usual.

“Well, clearly, she’s having lunch,” Pansy replied, beating Granger to speaking. “As a student who goes to study here would do around 1’o’clock. You and your friend, on the other hand, are not meant to be here, so the real question is what in Merlin’s name are you doing here?”

Because of course if Weasley moved, he was shadowed by Potter, and vice versa. Maybe they were each other’s soulmates, Draco thought. He glared at Potter for a couple of seconds before averting his gaze and moving away from Granger. He had unconsciously moved into Granger’s direction more when they were speaking, but was suddenly uncomfortable there.

“We asked Headmistress McGonagall permission to floo in and surprise Hermione,” Potter replied. “We had a day off from the Auror office and wanted to go and see her. We were worried that she was going to be alone.”

“Well, she’s not alone, so you can go,” Pansy said snidely.

Weasley ignored her altogether. “Hermione, the Gryffindor table is at the other side of the hall. Do you want to come sit with Ginny and us there? You don’t have to sit with -” Weasley paused and looked over Pansy and Draco, his distaste obvious. “Death Eaters,” he finished his sentence.

A lot of things happened at once then. Blaise arrived just as Ron finished his sentence and didn’t hesitate to call him an offensive name that Draco had flashbacks to the past about (“sod off, blood traitor”). Potter tried to calm Weasley down by calling his name and insisting they go. Pansy yelled at Weasley for being “an inconsiderate git” and Granger seemed to freeze as she looked at Draco. 

Draco stood up. “I have to go,” he said absent-mindedly, reaching out for the letter with his free hand. Granger reached out for his hand to stop him but Draco, utterly uncomfortable with sudden contact, flinched and moved away. In the meantime, Pansy and Blaise were busy yelling at Weasley and Potter tried to get a word in as well. It seemed that Pansy got a jab in about them having jobs because Potter mastered one spell whereas Blaise went down the usual poor and sad Weasleys route.

Of course, that was when Headmistress McGonagall arrived at the table and immediately found the culprits. “Mister Potter, Mister Weasley, I gave you permission to come visit this once under the impression that you would behave yourselves,” she said, looking at them with the same strict look that Draco had directed at him often. “If you can’t do that, you have to go.”

“But they -” Weasley started, but this time it was Draco beating him to speaking.

“But they got special privileges to be here,” he repeated mockingly. “Of course they did. The rules don’t count for Saint Potter and his Weasley friends. It’s always been that way and it’ll always be that way. You see, you don’t learn not to be self-righteous when no one ever tells you how full of shit you are. I learned my lesson. But clearly, least talented Weasley and the Chosen One of nothing are never going to learn anything, because everything always gets fixed for them. Want a job without even graduating? There you go, a very prestigious one. The wizarding world is less safe for it. Miss the best friend that you left to go to Hogwarts on her own? Of course the Headmistress will help you out, because unlike everyone else that has to wait until the Hogsmeade weekend to see people going to Hogwarts, you two just do whatever you please.”

With that, he emptied his cup of coffee and made a beeline for the exit of the Great Hall.

“Mister Malfoy,” Headmistress McGonagall called after him.

Draco raised his hand as a sign that he’d heard her. “Detention. I know. I’ll be there.”

With that, he left the Great Hall and went straight for the Slytherin common room. As he walked into the dormitory, he just saw Daphne exit it. He pulled a face at her and continued down his roac. Theo was still sitting in the windowsill and was reading a book. Draco found the other’s stash underneath a loose floorboard.


	13. Our Deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Chapter thirteen is up with a bit of a delay. I hope you all enjoy and as ever, thank you for reading, commenting, the kudos etc. The chapter title refers to the Best Coast song that I listened to a ton when it first was released. All the good stuff. Hopefully see you for the next one! (:

For the second time that week, Draco left for the eighth year Heads Common room in the evening. This time it was before curfew, and this time Granger may be expecting him to show up. She may not even be asleep this time.

There was a letter waiting to be opened on his nightstand, but Draco intended to either leave it there or put it in the drawer, because he doubted that the words in the letter were going to be applicable to the situation ever again. If Granger finally realized that Draco was who he was – a former Death Eater and not someone willing to worship the ground her friends walked on like the rest of the population did, among other things – it wasn’t going to matter how Narcissa Malfoy thought of the situation. Draco would just write her that it was over and that he’d been right all along. 

The moment that the door of the eighth year Heads Common room opened after he muttered the password, he was surprised by footsteps and then arms around him. He froze momentarily before wrapping his arms around Granger briefly and pushing a few dark curls away that had gotten in his face. Apparently Granger had been expecting him.

“It’s lovely to be welcomed like this,” he said, the words a little muffled between them, “but I don’t see what I did to deserve it. Last I recall I walked out of the Great Hall after offending your best friends.” And he stood by it, which was probably going to be part of the problem.

Granger let go of him and took a small step backwards to be able to look at him. She pushed her hair out of her face and sighed briefly. “Come sit with me,” she said then, taking his hand into hers and pulling him along into the small living room and towards the two couches gently.

_Advanced Potion Making _was lying on the table between the two couches next to a cup of tea, which implied that Granger had been rereading some recipes for homework. Did they have Potions homework? Draco wasn’t sure if it was the habit of not doing homework he didn’t find relevant or the habit of not listening to Slughorn that got in the way of him knowing that answer. There were no notes or essays on parchment in sight unless she tucked them inside of the book, though. He eyed the book briefly before he sat down beside Granger and folded his arms over one another habitually. He was told it seemed defensive. He always said he couldn’t help it that people were always attacking him over one thing or the other.

“I was going to stick up for you,” Granger said when she sat down as well and turned to face him. “But you already left before I got the chance to. I find it’s not very productive to engage when people are yelling at each other. I tend to wait until people have calmed down a bit.”

Personally, Draco found that yelling at people and getting yelled at in return helped for both parties involved, because they got some anger out of their system. He always hoped that helped for people like Bella and the Dark Lord, but they seemed to have so much anger inside that no amount of yelling was going to help them clear it out of their systems. With more ordinary people that would have to do the job, though, and personally he found there were little things more fun than winding up Gryffindors and see them lose what little self-control they have.

“Then did you? Once your friends calmed down?” he asked.

Granger wrinkled her nose, an endearing sight, and sighed then. “I tried,” she said, reaching out to fidget with a loose thread of her jumper, something that Draco stared at briefly. “They didn’t want to listen. They don’t believe that some people can change. They thought that they had to protect me, because I shouldn’t want to be around you and your friends.”

That remark made Draco crack up very briefly; he laughed until he realized Granger was serious, which promptly made him stop. “You’re not kidding,” he realized belatedly. “You are the most clever person I know. You always know what you’re doing. Why would you need to be protected? ”And especially not by her idiot Gryffindor friends.

Still fidgeting with her jumper, Granger waved her free hand absent-mindedly as though that would make all of his questions go away. “Apparently they think I’m so starved for attention from boys that I’d even go with you,” she said. “They think I’m naive to think you’ve changed. That you could never change, despite of what you did to save Harry.” Her big, brown eyes looked at him sadly and Draco wanted to pull her into his arms all over again. “They’re the ones that can’t change.”

Draco sighed and brought up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I haven’t changed,” he said. “Not the core of me, anyway. Or my personality. You can ask my friends, if you like. I’m still me. Sarcastic, stubborn, occasionally clever, always looking for new ways to irritate the people I don’t like. My belief system changed, maybe. But after that war? There is no way it couldn’t. You can’t be the superior race when you lose two wars and those of supposedly lesser blood keep beating you. It doesn’t make any logical sense.”

There was that. And then there was the fact that Draco had been utterly terrified of the Dark Lord and had to do things he couldn’t do to stop his parents from being killed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t support the man who would willingly kill the two people he loved the most just to prove a point. And he also couldn’t do what this man wanted him to do, so his blood wasn’t exactly superior either if that was anything to go by.

A girl in his class worked the hardest on her homework so she got the best grades. Her blood status was an argument neither here nor there. Her work ethic was the reason why she was so good, whereas Draco had been otherwise occupied from time to time.

“I like that you like logic,” Granger said, looking aside at him again. “We have that in common. But we mustn’t lose sight of the subject, which is that I’m sorry for how my friends acted.”

“I don’t want your apologies,” Draco said moodily. “It’s not yours to apologize about. If they want to apologize they can,” like that was ever going to happen, “but you don’t get to do it for them. ” He reached out to take the hand that she was fidgeting with into his. “Did you tell them? About the timer and your soulmate?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Like I said, they didn’t want to listen. They think they have the world all figured out, but they don’t. I don’t think any of us has, but they’re not even trying. I don’t expect anyone to have all the answers, but just a few would be nice.”

As a reply, Draco leaned in to kiss her, once and briefly. “There’s one answer for you,” he said, teasing her gently with a little grin on his face. “For some reason, this is meant to be.” Another slow kiss. “And don’t tell me this doesn’t feel right. Instead of constantly being at each other’s throats, we can talk about this now. That’s progress, Granger.”

“What would also be progress is that you stopped calling me Granger, Draco,” Granger said with a little smile as she lingered in his space. She paused and looked up at him then, eyebrows frowning. “What do you smell like?” she asked. “What is that?”

Briefly, Draco flashed back to the first thing he did when he returned to the Slytherin common room. No one knew where Theo’s stash was hidden other than him and that had a reason: he was also the only person that got to use Theo’s stash without asking for permission first. He did it rarely, but when he did it he was usually having the worst day and Theo never commented on the fact. None of that was anything Granger knew and he intended to keep it that way. She may tell McGonagall on them, possibly. Draco wasn’t sure what the odds were on that.

“Nothing,” he replied, making a mental note to shower next time after he smoked before he went to see her. “So what are you going do about your idiot friends?” he asked her to distract her.

“I wish you wouldn’t call them that,” Granger said.

“I wish they wouldn’t act like that,” Draco replied. “So I guess we’re both disappointed.”

Granger pulled a face as though ready to roll her eyes at him, and then didn’t do it.”I think I’ll write them a letter,” she said. “I don’t know how inclined they’ll be to read it, but they need to know. They also need to be kinder to you, because I won’t stand for behaviour like that.” Who was she, their mother?

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t really care,” he said. “But they’re your friends. If you think they have the mental capacity to deal with this, you should write them. I don’t want you losing your friends, no matter how much I don’t like them.”

He reflected that there was no way in the world that he would have chosen Granger over his own friends if they decided they couldn’t stand the sight of Granger and him together. His friends were more important to him than this relationship, which currently was potential at best. But that was easy for him to think, since his friends had been nothing but supportive. They may not all like Granger, but they also knew she was meant to make him happy and were therefore happy for him. And if a bunch of supposedly uncooperative Slytherins could do that, why not the supposedly chivalrous Gryffindors?

Granger looked aside at him briefly, starting to fidget with his fingers now. “I’ll try,” she said. “Your friends seem to be okay with this. None of them believe anything about my blood?”

“Are you asking me if my friends are secretly blood purists?” Draco asked her dryly, only to beat her to speaking by replying. “Nah. Daphne and Blaise have never been blood purists. The Greengrasses are neutral and Blaise is just vain and individualistic. Theo has been raised by a Death Eater but doesn’t get along with his father and you’re not inclined to copy the belief system of someone you don’t like. That leaves Pansy, who like me did as her parents told to and now won’t do it anymore. So no. They all quite like you, actually.”

That remark made Granger smile more than Draco thought it was going to. In the end validation was a human need if nothing else, and even Hermione Granger was only human. She moved closer to him and leaned her head against his chest, her left leg shifting against his right leg. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned his head on hers.

“This is very cat-like of you,” he commented. “Are you secretly an animagus?”

Granger stilled briefly and then chuckled softly. “I did once secretly brew Polyjuice Potion in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom so we could interrogate someone about the Chamber of Secrets. I thought I had stolen the right hair to put in the potion to finish it, but it turned out to be a cat hair. But that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten, I think.”

Draco had pulled a face at the mention of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom (bad memories), but once Granger mentioned the Chamber of Secrets he quickly counted back the years and came to a distinct conclusion. “You brewed Polyjuice Potion, correctly, in your second year?” he repeated, shaking his head a little. “That’s a really big accomplishment. Do I dare ask where you got the ingredients from?” She shook her head, still leaned against his chest. “Okay. Do I dare ask -” No, he didn’t dare ask who she had been trying to turn into or who she wanted to interrogate either, because right at that point he also realized something else about the Chamber of Secrets.

“How did Ginny Weasley not curse my head off the moment I sat down at the Gryffindor table a couple of days ago?” he asked. “Or maybe hit me with her bedamned Bat-Bogey Hex, but I feel like cursing my head off would have been more likely.” The Bat-Bogey was for minor incidents and almost dying in the Chamber of Secrets because of Draco’s father was not minor.

Hermione moved to look at him again. She wrapped her arms around him again and smiled a little. “She knows that wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You didn’t know anything about it, Draco. And she knows about us. She’s always supported me in trying to talk to you.”

That also explained why Ginny had so tentatively been on his side when Finnigan and Thomas complained he had been sitting at their table a couple of days prior. “So there’s at least one Weasley that possesses common sense,” he said. “It figures that it’s the only girl. I have much higher hopes for women than I do for men these days.” His mother saved her family, Pansy saved him and now Hermione was trying with him. He wasn’t wrong.

It meant that he wrapped his arms around Granger in return and pulled her so far in his direction that she lost her balance, falling against him, making him chuckle. They both settled on the couch then (after she told him three times to take off his shoes, that was) and Hermione curled up in his arms as he ran fingertips through his hair a couple of times.

He was ashamed to admit they fell asleep together like that, but he had no intention to wake Hermione and get up once the clock had passed midnight and he woke up briefly. 


	14. Sober

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! This chapter ends on a tiny cliffhanger, but I intend to update within a couple of weeks so the wait on the resolution isn't too long. On a similar note I am also working on a Half-Blood Prince AU on the side, so if you like this fic and would like to read some more, there's another thing I should be posting soon. As ever, I hope that everyone is well & thanks a lot for the kudos, comments, etc. It's always a joy to hear from you!

After classes on Monday, Draco made a beeline for the Slytherin common room and went straight to the eighth year boys dormitory. There on his nightstand was the letter that he left there the day prior, envelope closed. He turned it through his hands after he sat down at the edge of his bed and stared in front of himself, going over possible scenarios in his head, before he ripped open the edge of the envelope impatiently and pulled out the letter.

_My dearest Draco,_

_I’m glad to hear from you so early and that you made time to write. You father and I truly appreciate the effort you’re making. The redecoration of the manor is currently ongoing and will be finished by the time you return home. We’ll be hosting the New Year’s Eve Soiree, as always. We’re the Malfoys and it is our duty in the pureblood community to take care of a New Year’s feast. This is the only way to start the new year right: with the people that value us, and that we value as well. Your father and I wouldn’t want it any other way. _

_I must hear all about your soulmate, Draco. I’m so happy for you that you’re trying to get along and finding your way together. You deserve to work things out with her. What’s her name, dear, and what house is she in? You can introduce her to us during the New Year’s Eve Soiree. If you could just give me her name I can send her an invite when the time is right and she can be your plus one. This is wonderful news. I look forward to hearing more._

_Please send our love back to Pansy, dear, and let her know she is welcome to spend her winter holidays at the manor. Your father sends his love as well._

_All my love,_

_Narcissa _

Draco read the letter twice: once to get the gist, and once for the details. Then he put the letter down beside him and shook his head a little. He knew what he had to do. His mother responded exactly the way he thought she was going to, which meant he was going to have to start part two of his plan. It wasn’t going to be pretty. It was manipulative and therefore unfair, but realistically that was what his entire life had been up to this point. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, or so he was told, so he may well take advantage of that fact.

The library was his favoured location of writing letters, like he did last time, but unlike last time he didn’t do it in a spot where he was alone. No, this time he deliberately went to find Granger, who was sitting with Ginny and with her head bent over _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 7 _by Miranda Goshawk_. _He shook his head lightly at the sight and sat down in front of her, pushing away her stack of books to clear out some space.

“I did always prefer _Quintessence: A Quest _to all the dry tomes that Goshawk writes,” Draco said by way of greeting. He smirked at Granger when she looked up and nodded his head in Ginny’s direction as acknowledgement.

“Draco,” Granger said, her gaze shooting up and away from the book. “I thought you’d be doing homework with the Slytherins.”

Draco considered that statement briefly. All of his friends had been at school for the seventh year the first time and had already sat through all classes until May. It made paying attention and doing homework particularly challenging, because to some extent they’d already done it. The class they hadn’t attended before was Defence Against the Dark Arts for the simple reason it didn’t exist. The curse that the Dark Lord put on the class had to be broken now, but regardless of that they still didn’t have a competent teacher: the Ministry of Magic offered up an employee from the Auror department willing to teach the subject for a year so McGonagall could occupy herself with more pressing matters than good teaching. All in all, homework was not a priority.

“Nah,” he said as he reached into his bag to get his mother’s letter, a spare piece of parchment and his quill and ink. “Pansy and Daphne are discussing this week’s Witch Weekly, Blaise is practising for quidditch try-outs and Theo is reading. I figured I’d hang out with you.” He looked aside at Ginny briefly then. “How were the Gryffindor try-outs? Did you make the team?”

“I’m the captain of the team, Malfoy,” Ginny said dryly. “So yes, I made the team. We don’t have Harry, but I think we have a good chance at winning the Cup. The new chaser is really good.”

Draco consciously had to filter through a number of snide remarks – that just having Potter on the team meant they would win because the Chosen Idiot needed to win based on the fact that he killed the Dark Lord, that they didn’t need Potter because they were Gryffindors and that of course they’d give Potter’s girlfriend captain – before he tried smiling and replied. “Well, good for you. I hope you do well.” He didn’t really, he was ready to beat Gryffindor and have a really good party for the occasion, but for the sake of getting along he tried being nice.

Ginny seemed to be surprised by that if her face expression was anything to go by and Granger flashed a small smile at him, probably happy because he was making an effort. “What are you up to?” Granger asked, inclining towards the parchment with her head.

“I’m going to write my mother a letter,” he said. “The letter Pansy gave to me on Sunday was hers. She invited my soulmate to our prestigious New Year’s Eve Soiree, so I hope you have a dress.” She invited his soulmate, yes, and not Hermione Granger, but Draco was sure that Granger caught the way that he had phrased that sentence as well.

“A soiree?” Ginny asked, unable to keep the mocking tone out of her voice. “Is that what you call the exclusive parties that you filthy rich purebloods throw?”

Draco looked aside at her briefly. “Yes,” he said then, flashing a dry smile at her before returning his gaze to Granger. “I’d offer to go dress shopping with you in October when we go to Hogsmeade, but it may be easier to order something in from the catalogue. It’s probably a better subject to discuss with Pansy or even Daphne. They know this kind of thing much better than I do.”

Granger stared at him briefly, but he wasn’t sure what he said that would make her stare. He got his quill and studied his mother’s letter briefly, wondering how he was going to pull off what he had to do. That was when Hermione piped up. “Your mother invited me to a soiree that your family is hosting?” she repeated. “Is it in your manor?”

Briefly, Draco flashed back to the last and also only time that Hermione Granger ever set foot in Malfoy Manor. She was brought in by Snatchers and was tortured on the floor of a hall in front of one of the three cellar entrances. For convenience, of course, because they kept the prisoners in that specific part of the cellars. Because it turned out you couldn’t trust someone that betrayed someone else to join your cause (and what a surprise that was) she got away. All he remembered was her screams as Bella carved the word _mudblood _on her left arm, though. Would she have known by then, that he was supposed to be her soulmate? He hoped not. In that case he’d truly been a letdown from the beginning.

“You don’t have to go,” Draco said. “In fact, I won’t go either. It’s lame and not important. It’s just for -” he glanced aside at Ginny briefly, “filthy rich purebloods with their stupid exclusive parties.”

“I didn’t say stupid,” Ginny said.

“Well, I did,” Draco replied. “And that’s what it is. It’s old-fashioned and we don’t have to show up. You should spend New Year’s with your friends and I’ll -” Probably convince his friends to spend the holiday going out, getting drunk and crashing and someone else’s place. “Spend it with mine,” he finished his sentence before reaching out to put a hand on Hermione’s arm. “Forget it.”

“Draco -” Hermione started, but he interrupted.

“No,” he replied. “I have a letter to write and you have yet another book about Charms by Miranda Goshawk to get through. Good luck with that. It gets worse with every volume.” He flashed a grin at her, momentarily convinced he distracted Granger enough by what no doubt was a commentary about one of her favourite books. Every book was Granger’s favourite book as far as he was concerned. The way she was looking at him, though, made it look like his remarks about Goshawk went in one ear and out the other and she was still thinking about the soiree.

It meant he leaned in over the table to kiss her briefly. “Stop thinking,” he told her. “I told you it’s not a big deal. Don’t overanalyze it. You’ll not be getting any sleep if you do and I’m not sleeping on that bloody couch again while you use me as your pillow. My back is still sore.” He just couldn’t believe he didn’t think it through. Of course Hermione didn’t want to celebrate New Year’s at Malfoy Manor.

Hermione was still looking at him when he leaned back and took his quill again. “Fine,” she conceded eventually. “But we’ll have to discuss this, Draco. I can’t avoid the home of your parents forever.”

Draco thought that was totally possible if he was being honest. He also doubted that they would make it until New Year’s, so it shouldn’t have been an issue to begin with. “Fine,” he copied her choice of words. “Later.” And when they were alone, because from the corner of his eye he caught Ginny Weasley’s incredulous look when he kissed Granger and stated matter-of-factly they shared the couch the past night.

He looked down at the empty parchment briefly before intending to dip the quill into the ink. That, however, was precisely when Pansy arrived at the table. She lingered over looking at Ginny briefly before she stood still right beside him and spoke, the words so soft that neither Weasley nor Granger could hear her. “You have to come with. I just spotted Slughorn in the Great Hall with someone that I’m convinced is going to be looking for you.” She looked aside at his company then, as though implying that being spotted with Granger and Weasley would be bad somehow.

Well, unless Horace Slughorn invited a former Death Eater and his wife to Hogwarts Draco didn’t see how that could possibly be an issue. And there was no way Slughorn would do that. Draco could be dying in the Hospital Wing and Slughorn would still be so concerned about his reputation that he’d doubt whether he should invite Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy or not. That left the question of who Pansy saw that she was so concerned about that she went to find him.

“Who is it?” Draco asked, making sure to keep his voice down as well.

Pansy looked aside at Ginny and Hermione then, sighed and replied at last. “Remember when we were at the manor and that hit witch that was assigned to your case came by unannounced to see what you were up to?” she asked softly. “That’s the one. She was shooting looks in my direction already, probably because she recognized me. But I don’t understand. You said she’d only bother you if you broke the law again and you haven’t, right?”

Didn’t he? It was Draco’s turn to glance aside at Granger briefly. He knew at least one thing he did that was strictly speaking against the law, but there was only one person other than Theo (who would never throw Draco under the bus; if he killed a man Theodore would help him get rid of the body) that could have known it. Granger was a stickler for the rules, that much was a fact, but would she go behind his back to do it?

Promptly, he got up and packed his stuff back into his bag. The letter would have to wait, again. He wasn’t going to have any kind of confrontation with any kind of Ministry official with Granger around, never mind with the woman who knew his case file inside out, read every word he said on the stand and had him discuss the war several times.

“What’s going on?” Granger asked, eyeing him first and then Pansy when he didn’t reply.

Pansy was the one to reply. “It’s an emergency,” she declared. “We have to go. We’ll catch you later.”

With that, Draco got up and followed Pansy outside of the library, still wondering and worrying.


	15. Clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is fifteen. Crazy that I've written so much for this story already, while there are still so many things left to explore. On a different note, I hope everyone is doing well and keeping themselves safe. Enjoy!

When Draco and Pansy arrived in the Great Hall, the hit witch was still in conversation with Horace Slughorn. Draco attempted to hide behind the wall and Pansy, who was a couple of inches smaller than him, and studied her from there. Pansy leaned against the doorway and studied her nails as though she could not care less, but Draco knew she was keeping an eye on the hit witch from the corner of her eyes as well.

“Do you reckon she was one of his favourite students?” Pansy asked. “She must have been a member of the Slug Club. Can you imagine? I’d rather sleep with a Gryffindor than have to attend parties that Slughorn throws.” Draco didn’t see the logic behind that statement, but Pansy already explained. “Sleeping with a Gryffindor is a one time thing, whereas if I was in Slug Club I would have to deal with them constantly. Or have you forgotten about yesterday?”

He had not, in fact, forgotten about yesterday and about how Weasley’s and Potter’s insufferable hero complex and huge egos got in the way of anyone involved having a good day. He didn’t think he could spend more than a minute with either one of the two without either hexing or punching them.

Regardless, he didn’t find himself agreeing with Pansy. “It’s not all Gryffindors, though,” he said. “It depends on what members of the house attend the party. If worst comes to worst Granger may want to take me.” He mock-shuddered at the thought. Granger probably didn’t understand why Draco and most of his friends couldn’t stand Slughorn. She didn’t think the way they did.

“Girl Weasley isn’t going around hexing you either,” Pansy observed. “You must be doing something right to have convinced the lions that you’re not a threat.”

“Just the ones with common sense,” he replied.

Pansy chuckled at that. Right at that moment, the conversation between the head of the Slytherin house and the hit witch was over and the latter intended to head for the exit of the Great Hall, only to find him standing there with Pansy. Draco supposed it was probably better that he came to find her instead of the opposite way around. Granger didn’t need to hear a single word that the hit witch could possibly have to say to him.

Avery, Draco remembered as the hit witch approached. Her name was Avery. Back when the war had ended and she’d just been assigned to his case, he had assumed that they had picked her to handle his case specifically because he may be more inclined to cooperate with someone with a Sacred 28 last name. To be fair, they weren’t wrong, but it made Draco wary regardless. An Avery or not, she hadn’t fought for the cause and to Draco’s knowledge she even had to go into hiding because the Dark Lord had been looking to recruit her.

“Mister Malfoy,” she greeted him as she came face to face with him. Draco had, as ever, folded his arms over one another and stood still beside Pansy. “I received an owl from Professor Slughorn this morning. Does anywhere spring to mind where we can discuss the matter?”

Draco exchanged a glance with Pansy, who raised her eyebrows as though to say _ of course the Old Slug did it. _He was their Head of House, so whoever wanted to mess with Draco would go to him. The man also had no reason to back Draco (a Death Eater, no less, someone that Slughorn seemed to be deadly allergic to associating with),so if he was told anything by anyone he would most likely believe it. In Draco’s experience, _innocent until proven guilty _only counted for those without a criminal record. Regardless, he still wasn’t sure what he did this time.

“Since Slughorn owled you, I’m sure he would be willing to give up the spare Potions classroom for this no doubt enthralling discussion,” he said. Sometimes words didn’t need a sarcastic undertone to make it clear they were sarcastic. He turned to Pansy and added, with a roll of his eyes: “I’ll see you soon.” If he didn’t, Pansy would know to draw her conclusions from that.

He led the way into the dungeons, all the while wondering if Avery had been a Slytherin or not. She had the last name for it, that was for sure, but she had too many traits of someone that had never heard of self-preservation before. Draco was notoriously allergic to people like that. That did beg the question what he was doing with Granger, but she wasn't without self-preservation either. If she had been, she would have let her dear friends give her the dressing down she didn't deserve.

When they arrived at the spare Potions classroom, Draco let Avery walk in first with an inviting (sarcastic) gesture of his hand and closed the door behind him. He lingered over looking at the teacher’s desk briefly before he sat down on top of it and looked at Avery from there, who was leaning against a desk and studied him from there.

“I wondered if your sarcastic and stubborn attitude had anything to do with your surroundings,” Avery said matter-of-fact. “But as it turns out, it’s as prevalent here as it was in your home and at the Ministry. Doesn’t that get exhausting?”

“People asking me nonsense gets exhausting much faster,” Draco replied without batting an eye. He was used to Avery trying to draw him out to get him to say something real by now. It didn’t work. He was used to worse interrogation techniques. “So we’re one week in the school year and you’re coming to find me Monday midday. I would like to know what I did so we can get the small talk over with and get to the point.”

Avery was still studying him and started to smile slowly. “Draco,” she started then, “your probation has a number of conditions. We explained them to you. We said there would be consequences if you didn’t follow them. So would you like to explain to me why Slughorn has you in detention within the week of the school year?”

Oh. That part. The Wizengamot insisted he go back to Hogwarts to finish his education like a regular student, even if he was anything but. Part of going back to school, however, meant that he was supposed to act like a _model student. _As if there was any such thing. Draco hadn’t expected to be in detention within the week, alas, but the rule was stupid. He’d never gone a week without breaking some rules. He just didn’t usually get caught.

“You came all the way to Scotland to scold at me for calling Weasley and Potter self-righteous assholes?” Draco shook his head at that. “I stand by it. I don’t regret a word. I may be an extremely rich and privileged brat, but at least I can own up to it. They can’t. They should be the ones in detention, but regardless of having been here Sunday they don’t go to this school. Weird, no?”

Avery sighed briefly before she moved in his direction from where she’d been standing and moved to stand beside him. She leaned against the desk. “Draco, you are used to getting away with saying whatever you want. But that’s not how it is any more. There are things that you can think but can’t say. It’ll take some getting used to.”

What did she think he had been doing the entire summer? Saying everything he thought? He would probably have been in Azkaban if he did that. She could talk about the new world order all she wanted, but that didn’t change the facts. The facts were that he was a Malfoy and that he wouldn’t stand for anyone wronging him, and that certainly included Potter and Weasley.

“Just because you worship the ground Potter walks on, like everyone else, doesn’t mean I can’t set him straight. Potter almost killed me in sixth year and he got detention. _Detention. _Everyone else would have gotten suspended, but not Saint Potter.”

“Didn’t you almost kill both Katie Bell and Ron Weasley in that same year, Draco?” Avery asked dryly. “You didn’t get suspended for that, either.”

He raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was a stupid discussion. “No, because no one knew it was me back then. By the time anyone had it figured out I was outed as a Death Eater and off the grid and then the Dark Lord took over the Ministry. The Bell and Weasley cases have been discussed during my trial, as I’m sure you recall.” All the nonsense about _you could have killed them! _How was it his fault that idiot Gryffindors couldn’t do as they were told and that Slughorn was the most self-centred person alive? “Did Potter have a trial for almost killing me? Did he have to stand in front of the Wizengamot and explain why he used a spell that ripped my skin open, leaving scars to this day? No. He got a medal and a job instead.”

“In war, everything is allowed -”

“As long as you win,” he finished Avery’s sentence dryly. “I have a sense of self-preservation that many others are lacking severely. Did I do terrible, unthinkable stuff to survive? I did. Do I stand by it? I do. You can’t fault me for holding others accountable for their nonsense if they constantly do it with me.”

Avery looked aside at him. “You’re a very difficult person to work with.”

“I’m aware,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders lightly. “Always the asshole, never a glimpse of emotion. It’s tragic.” He looked back to be able to look Avery in the eye before playing the ultimate trump card. “Hermione Granger agreed with me, by the way. She said it was ridiculous how they acted as well.”

That was when Avery looked genuinely confused. “Hermione Granger, the girl that defeated Voldemort,” he cringed, something that she ignored, “alongside Harry Potter? You’re friends with her?”

He had always been good at the scheming thing, but he didn’t think he would be using the results of his timer countdown against a Ministry official that was keeping an eye on his probation rules. Well, she didn’t leave him much of another choice. “I’m dating her,” he declared. “And before you check if I put the Imperius on her – I did not. Shockingly, she actually likes me.”

Avery looked at him as though wondering if he was capable of the Imperius. She knew the answer to that. Madam Rosmerta did too. When she looked away, she shook her head lightly. “You’re excused from detention,” she said. “But please apply a filter to your words next time you run into Harry Potter or Ron Weasley. This doesn’t look good for you, Draco.”

Why should he bother if they didn’t? He knew the answer to that question, which was why he didn’t ask. Instead, he rolled his eyes and sighed afterwards. This double standard was ridiculous, but apparently that was what he was going to have to live with. It made him want to take advantage of the Hermione Granger situation much more often, but that wasn’t fair towards her. She wasn’t some trump card he could play whenever he needed it, and she must be struggling with this as well.

Draco got up from the desk and dusted the dirt off his clothes. “So your job is to babysit me and come by every time I land in detention? Don’t bother. I don’t like school rules.”

Avery studied him again, eyebrows frowning. “You’re a criminal, Draco,” she said. “Your criminal record is longer than that of ninety-nine percent of the wizarding population. We have to be monitoring your every step to secure you won’t go on the wrong path.”

Oh yes, the wrong path of saving his parents from inevitable death. He’d forgotten about that part.

“I get it, as soon as I breathe near dark arts an alarm goes off in your office,” Draco said, waving the words away. “But this isn’t me throwing around Unforgivables or researching the best spells to return the favour to Potter. I could get detention for breaking curfew or not handing in homework, because the teachers don’t really like me and I don’t intend to pretend to be asleep at an insanely early time or do homework I already did last year. You shouldn’t have to come to Scotland for that.”

That was when Draco heard a shocking pair of words come out of Avery’s mouth. “I agree.” He had to do a double take, something that made her chuckle. “I agree, I do. It’s not my job to make sure that a Hogwarts student does his homework. Let’s not forget that’s what you are too. So I agreed with Slughorn that he write me only when something drastic was going on. But in return for this loosened agreement, I want you to write me monthly updates as well.”

“So you _are _a babysitter, but just a long distance one,” Draco concluded.

“Draco -”

“Fine,” he conceded. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from your actual work of chasing after actual criminals, of course." 


	16. Only human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! With the current state of affairs in this world, I figured that we could all use something to distract us. Therefore an early and also double update, as I'll be posting the next chapter right after this one. Honestly, I'll be happy if this temporarily distracts even two people from what's going on; every little bit helps, y'know? This is a time we should be looking out for each other. I hope everyone is well, and thank you all for the kind comments, the kudos, etc. I really appreciate it.
> 
> On another note, I recognize that there'll always be people who don't agree with Draco on anything and who don't think his point of view is in any way correct. That's completely fine. I don't agree with him either some of the time. What isn't fine, however, is finding hateful messages in my inbox about Draco. For me, it's quite simple: I write for enjoyment, and I suppose you (as my readers) read for enjoyment. I decide what I write and you decide what you read. When you don't enjoy this story or the point of view of a character, you don't read it. There are people that do enjoy it (like myself and my readers), so it seems counterproductive to ruin our fun (since it's more difficult to write updates with messages in my inbox like that; hard to get motivated). Be kinder, please.

When Draco walked into the Great Hall for dinner and looked towards the Slytherin table, he only saw Daphne talk to Astoria. He frowned at the sight of all his friends missing from the table and checked his watch. He was pretty sure that 6pm was their usual time to have dinner, more or less, but there was no trace of Pansy, Blaise or Theo. It wasn’t unusual that Theo didn’t show up, but Blaise and Pansy were usually quite punctual.

Then he looked aside at the Gryffindor table and found Blaise and Pansy sit there with Granger and girl Weasley. He blinked at the sight of it. Apparently, that was something he was never going to get used to. He also didn’t think that Pansy and Blaise would voluntarily sit at the Gryffindor table. Granger sitting at their table was one thing, but that was another altogether.

It was whilst shaking his head that he made his way over to the Gryffindor table and sat down between Granger and Blaise. Blaise was telling an animated story that everyone seemed to be all ears for. Draco stole a few fries from Pansy’s plate and flashed a smile at her when she pulled a face at him.

“How was talking to Slughorn’s lackey?” Pansy asked, her eyebrows raising briefly.

“Wonderful,” Draco replied. “I had the time of my life explaining yet again that while I know actions have consequences I always stand by what I did, no matter what.”

“Everything?” Hermione asked, who apparently had been listening. “You don’t regret anything?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head resolutely. “I am aware that regretting something counts as a human emotion, but I’m not familiar with the sensation. I think everything I do through until it’s painful for everyone involved and then I do it.”

Hermione looked at him as though she’d never seen him before. Pansy, on the other hand, nodded in agreement and stole one of her stolen fries back from him. “I get that,” she said. “I don’t think Blaise does, though. He’s told this story ten times and I still think he didn’t think it through.”

“Which one is it?” Draco asked, looking aside at Blaise briefly. He was talking to Ginny and another girl from the Gryffindor quidditch team that Draco didn’t know the name of.

“Remember when we were fourteen and we were in a very intense game of _Truth or dare _with Daphne and Theo as well and you dared Blaise to go talk to the representative of the Falmouth Falcons that was at his mom’s party?”

Draco studied Pansy as he tried to think of it. There had been quite a few intense games of _Truth or dare _throughout the years when they were teenagers, so it was difficult to tell them apart. Pansy seemed to see him struggle, so she tried reminding him: “He hadn’t even made the team yet, but he was convinced he was going to be the next big thing in quidditch. But, as it turned out, the representative was only there because -”

“Pansy,” Blaise interrupted her. “You can’t tell the end of the story when I’m not even there yet.”

“Then hurry up,” Pansy replied. “We’ve heard enough of the boasting by now.”

Ginny laughed. Draco took some salad from the salad bowl and chuckled as Pansy and Blaise continued to bicker about whether or not Blaise had been boasting. He had been. Beside him Hermione didn’t seem to be all that amused, though.

Hermione was still thoughtful when they made their way towards their shared common room. He suspected he shouldn’t be asking what was going on with her, but the silence was starting to bother him. Someone like Hermione Granger shouldn’t be silent. She should be talking so much that it was annoying, like she usually did.

When the portrait door opened to let the two of them in, Granger finally seemed to decide to speak her mind. “I don’t understand you, Draco. How can you not regret anything you ever did? I can think of a bunch of things I would have regretted if I were you.”

Draco stepped in as well and made his way into the kitchen. “But you’re not me,” he said, a small smile on his face that wasn’t a smile at all. With Granger saying things like that he had nothing to smile about. “I don’t expect you to get it.” He moved to open a cupboard and get two mugs to pour tea in for later, only to pause the movement halfway, smirk slowly and turn and look at her again. “Okay. Try me. What should I regret?” She was going to regret this, that was for sure.

Hermione moved from the living room, where she had put down her bag, to the kitchen area and stood still in the doorway there. “Becoming a Death Eater,” she said.

Draco chuckled briefly and looked down to consider his words briefly. If he wanted both of them to get through this without getting angry, he needed to be careful with what he said. “No,” he said when he looked back up. “If I didn’t take the Mark, the Dark Lord would kill my parents. I don’t care what it takes to save them. I’ll do it. If the Dark Lord returned today and captured them, I’d still go back to serve him. So no, I don’t regret it. Next.”

Next, indeed. Granger’s brain seemed to be working very fast now, if the way she was scanning his face was anything to go by. “Almost killing Katie and Ron,” she said then. “If your plan was to let Death Eaters into the castle from the beginning, why do that?”

Now they were getting beyond the surface. It was pretty clear that Granger thought she was asking clever questions, while all she was doing was reaffirming what Draco already knew: that they didn’t think the same way, and that was why she was a Gryffindor that liked to mind other people’s business whereas he was a Slytherin with a sixth sense for self-preservation.

“That plan was my worst case scenario,” Draco said. “While I am able to admit that the cursed necklace and the poisoned mead were weak efforts to kill Dumbledore, they were both directed at the old man and had nothing to do with Katie and your precious Weasley. They were at the wrong moment at the wrong time. I regret that they were almost collateral damage, but that doesn’t mean I regret trying the plans.” If he’d actually directed the Killing Curse at either one of them it would have been a different matter.

“You don’t like being here,” Granger observed quietly as she pushed a lock of hair out of her face impatiently. “At the castle. Do you regret coming here?”

Not the question that he’d expected, but for the sake of argument he would answer. “The alternative was Azkaban, so I’m good here,” he replied dryly, shrugging his shoulders. “See. Nothing. I can think about stuff for days. Pansy calls it brooding. But in the end I always have a decision and I stick by it.”

Hermione shook her head then and took a step forward. “I don’t believe you,” she said softly. “There has to be something. Everyone regrets something they did, Draco. Maybe you’re just afraid to tell me, but I know there’s something.”

Draco had to think about that. The closest to regretting something he was going to come to was probably bullying Hermione. But he knew that couldn’t count. In his mind, regret had to be based on the situation and the immediate outcome. He could go over numerous _what ifs? _and go crazy slowly, but that didn’t solve anything. What if he’d told someone about the death threat he was under? He could regret not doing it, but the situation might have ended up worse. What if he’d known Hermione was his soulmate before he used the word _mudblood _on her? He probably would have done it earlier to ignore the painful reality of that fact.

Back in the day that he called Hermione names, he felt it was completely justified. That he was wrong didn’t mean he could regret it, because he did exactly what was expected of him and what had been right in that moment in time. He would always have done it, because his father had always told him it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t as simple as calling someone a bad name. It was Draco’s entire background and family history. One way or another he was going to have to have sided with the person that was against Hermione, because he would have been disgracing his family if he didn’t. Some may call it flawed logic, but nothing was as clear-cut and black and white as Granger wanted it to be. He’d apologized, and that was the end of that. 

It meant that he had questions for her in return, because there were things Hermione may think she regretted looking back, but she didn’t because they were right in that moment.

“Do you regret implying that the only reason I made the quidditch team in our second year was because my father gave the team better brooms?” Draco asked. “Do you regret punching me in the face in our third year? Or do you regret going with Potter’s insane idea that he needed to save his godfather in the Department of Mysteries while everyone with a bit of common sense could have guessed the Dark Lord was playing tricks on him?”

“What does that have to do with -” Hermione started.

“Me?” Draco ended that sentence. “Your idiocy ended me up with a Dark Mark and a death threat. So do you?”

“No, but,” Hermione started, glancing up at him briefly, “that’s not the same. The first two things you had coming and for the third thing I needed to help Harry. He needed us. I’m sorry that your father got arrested, Draco, but I’m not sorry for doing it.”

“Exactly,” he said before turning around to get the mugs. “So how about you stop thinking about what I regret in my life, which is nothing, and instead think about things that you can still have an effect on, like your homework.” He put the mugs on the kitchen counter before turning back to look at her. “Pansy always says that girls like me because I’m the tortured anti-hero that you can still save. Well, you can’t, so don’t try to be that girl.”

Hermione stared at him for a couple of seconds before she turned around abruptly and stormed back into the living room. Draco watched her go and chuckled briefly. It had gone just like he expected. Granger thought she knew the inside of his head better than he did, not knowing how many hours he spend working through things in his head. She shouldn’t have questioned him, because in the contrary of what it sometimes looked like he always knew exactly what he was doing.

He let her fume quietly for a couple of minutes as he slowly made two cups of tea. From the corner of his eye he could see that she had already buried her head a book, probably her usual coping mechanism of choice. It was healthier than his choice of ignoring reality, but it still wasn’t healthy. Her soulmate was a Death Eaters who did terrible things to other people and didn’t regret it. It was a harsh reality to face. It was his reality to face, though, and she was making it her problem. That was like implying Hermione once almost cursing his uncle’s face off was the reason she wasn’t invited to the next Malfoy manor soiree.

When the tea was done, Draco made his way into the living room as well. He put Hermione’s cup of tea down in front of her and stirred in his own absent-mindedly after he sat down on the other couch. He studied her for a couple of seconds, wondering if he should break the silence at all. He felt that he had to, even if Granger had yet again stuck her nose in business her nose did not belong in.

“The world isn’t so perfectly black-and-white as we want it to be,” he said then. Hermione looked over him over the edge of the book. “I don’t like that it isn’t, but I can acknowledge it. I can use it to my favour: I can argue that you people that sided with the Light did despicable things and that winning the war didn’t change that. I can argue that I, as a Death Eater and a generally horrible person, am not altogether evil either. You know it, too, or else we wouldn’t be here.”

Hermione sighed and lowered the book. “I can’t reconcile the man that I sometimes talk to and like to the boy that you’ve been and the things that you did during the war,” she said. “You reminded me of the latter version this evening. I tell myself it’s not you, but it is. I can’t be with that person.”

Draco took a sip of his tea and smiled then. “Well, I can’t be with the irritating know-it-all that I met at age eleven, either. Good thing that’s not you anymore.” When Hermione didn’t reply, he continued. “It’s simple. You can either reconcile the two and conclude that I have, and I hate to say it, grown as a person, or you can keep seeing me as the sixteen year old faced with an impossible choice and ignore that you and your friends did your share of terrible things as well.”

He genuinely hoped that she wasn’t going to ask ‘like what’ because while he wasn’t in the mood he was probably able to come up with a list of situations that didn’t end up looking good for Potter, Weasley and Granger. Just because their wrongdoings were always ignored or glossed over didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

“I did say I never wanted easy,” Hermione said eventually. “I just didn’t think it would be so hard.” She paused briefly and studied him. “How did the story that Blaise was telling end?”

Draco chuckled briefly. “His mother turned out to be sleeping with the representative.”

Hermione’s face turned shocked momentarily before she laughed softly.


	17. I'll be there for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the part two of the 26th of March update. In case you were wondering: yes, I named this chapter after the Friends theme song and yes, writing dynamics between the boys (Draco, Theo and Blaise) and the entire group has become easier through watching shows like that. (; I hope everyone is having a good day!

“Why don’t you stay?” Granger asked when Draco got up with the intention to leave the Heads common room and go to the Slytherin common room for the night.

Draco had moved from where he’d been sitting on the other couch to her couch when their earlier conflict had been resolved with the acknowledgement that nothing was black and white and that while he wasn’t the boy that made the decisions he had any longer, he stood by then because there was nothing to be done about it now. They had been reading a book together, Granger curled up against him and Draco drifting kisses over whatever he could reach – usually her neck – every now and then. He had never been so tactile. It was strange. Apparently it made her want him to stay.

“You know why,” Draco said as he stretched. “Blaise and Theo. I can’t stay away. They’d worry.”

Granger frowned briefly at that and seemed to consider what to say to that. She probably didn’t agree, but she didn’t have to. She didn’t understand Draco’s support system, or so it seemed to him. “But if you tell them that you’re here, they don’t have to worry,” she pointed out.

While that theoretically was a good point, Draco shook his head regardless. “We went through a time when they didn’t know if I would be coming back to the dormitory at all,” he reminded her softly. “The dormitory is the same, and now Gregory and Vincent,” he paused briefly, closing his eyes, “aren’t there either. So I can’t leave them with an empty bed. Not yet.”

When he opened his eyes again, Granger was standing in front of him and smiled at him. “Okay,” she said. “I’d ask, but I want to keep asking questions once I start and I don’t think you’d make it to your common room before midnight in that case.”

Draco chuckled briefly and looked down at her then. He kissed her briefly. “I’ll talk to them,” he promised her, reaching out for a lock of her hair and twirling it around his finger. “The year is still quite long and there’s plenty of night to fall asleep on the couch together.”

“If you stay over, Malfoy, you would be sleeping in a bed,” Hermione said, shaking her head at him.

Draco pressed his lips together, waited for Hermione to say it herself, and when she didn’t the words just escaped his lips. “Yours? Tempting.”

That reply made her both laugh and sigh, something that made him grin in return. “Go to bed,” she said. “In your own dormitory. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When Draco arrived in his dormitory a couple of minutes later, the walk to the common room blissfully quiet, Theo and Blaise were sitting on the latter’s bed and talking.

“Granger?” Blaise guessed.

“And we have a winner,” Draco announced dryly as he passed by the bed to get to his. “Let me know when you want to claim your prize.”

“I cannot believe the two of you are actually making it work,” Blaise said with a shake of his head. “Sometimes you say things that make me go ‘No, Draco, take it back’ and you never do. It’s like you lost all game with the knowledge that she’s your soulmate.”

“It’s not about game, Blaise,” Draco replied as he stripped out of his robes and exchanging them for a T-shirt to sleep in. “She’s my soulmate. It means that there’s something redeemable enough about me that she’d want me, regardless of the war and the choices I made. I don’t want to screw it up by playing hard to get or pretending to be something I’m not. That’s not fair to her.”

Theo and Blaise exchanged a glance. Draco sat down at his own bed and looked at them from there, eyebrows raising, waiting for one of them to say what they were both clearly thinking.

“We just didn’t think you had it in you after the train wreck disaster that was Pansy and you,” Theo said at last. “We thought you’d continue to push people away and screw your way through the student body – whoever wanted you, anyway.”

Draco wrinkled his nose. “Tempting,” he said. The first part truly was tempting; he’d played the game of pushing people away for years now and had become fairly good at it. Screwing his way through the student body, however? Not his way to go. He had a certain standard, and currently the only one meeting that standard was Granger. The standard? He wanted someone that belonged to him.

Blaise shook his head a little. “Good to see you back, anyway,” he said as Theo got up from his bed and made his way to his own bed. “I just -” He stopped abruptly and pulled a face as though he was physically unable to keep talking.

“He worries,” Theo replied helpfully. “He doesn’t want to admit because feelings are gross and they imply he’s not as individualistic as we think, but he worries.”

Draco cocked his head to the side as he studied Blaise before getting up from the bed and crossing the room over to Blaise’s bed, where he sat down beside the other and proceeded to wrap his arms around the other.

“What are you doing?” Blaise asked.

“I’m happy for you and your soulmate,” Draco said then. “And thank you. For caring.” He looked aside at Theo then. “Do you also want a hug?”

“If you feel like giving hugs out of a sudden, I guess we may as well get it over with,” Theo said. “Albeit I didn’t know you knew who Blaise’s soulmate is. I don’t.”

Draco looked aside at Blaise, who had returned the hug for a couple of seconds before they both let go. He sauntered over to Theo’s bed them and wrapped his arms around the other with a little less ceremony – unlike Blaise, he’d known Theo his entire life and had therefore also hugged him before, as well as shared beds with him.

“It’s Daphne,” Draco told Theo. Seconds later a pillow flew in their direction that Draco managed to dodge by diving on Theo’s bed and taking Theo with him in the fall. “And there’s your confirmation.”

“A flying pillow means nothing,” Blaise said grumpily.

“Sure,” Draco replied. “Other than the fact that you wouldn’t have felt the need to throw anything at me if I was just speculating. It’s Daphne, that’s wonderful and I am very happy for the both of you. I’ll tell her tomorrow as well. I don’t think she’ll throw pillows.”

“When people say you’re impossible?” Blaise queried rhetorically as Draco let go of Theo and made his way back to his own bed. “This is what they mean. Precisely this.”

Draco knew. He didn’t care, because he knew deep down that Blaise was glad that Draco cared enough to tell him he was happy for her. Granted, he told Theo what he knew, but Daphne and Blaise hadn’t been terribly subtle about it either. Theo had to have seen Daphne in Blaise’s bed as well the day after their truth game in the common room.

He wished the other two a good night, drew the curtains of his bed shut and settled into his bed. He knew better, but he didn’t want to disturb the other two until they were asleep as well. It meant he put his arms behind his head, closed his eyes and waited to hear the familiar sounds of Theo turning around a couple of times until he got comfortable and Blaise’s fidgeting with the blankets. It wasn’t until he caught the sound of two slow and even breaths that he moved to sit up in his bed and reached towards his nightstand to get a quill and parchment. This time he had two letters to write. He started with the hardest one.

_Dear mother,_

_I am excited to see the redecorations of the manor when I return home for the holidays. I have no doubt it will look perfect. Of course we mustn’t forget or neglect our duty to the pureblood community either. Has the work on the guest list begun already or are you leaving that until a time closer to New Year’s?_

_However, I’m afraid I must disappoint you, for I will not be bringing my soulmate to the New Year’s soiree. She would be very uncomfortable there and I don’t wish for her to feel badly on New Year’s. Of course I’ll be in attendance and I intend to ask Pansy to be my plus one, as my closest friend. While my soulmate and I are attempting to make this relationship work, she is understandably concerned about our involvement in the war, our past actions and our belief system._

_Listen, mom, all niceties aside: I don’t want to screw this up. Saying that she’s too good for me, or that she’s way out of my league, while all true don’t mean anything because for some reason she belongs with me. And I get it. We sided with a man who ran made a formerly (slightly) safe school into the students’ worst nightmares and who got her friends killed because of a crusade about extremist beliefs. I know you don’t like hearing it. Quite frankly, neither do I. But it’s true._

_Our manor was used as Death Eater headquarters and changing the colour on the walls and buying new furniture isn’t going to change that fact. People got tortured and killed at what we call home. I would have been surprised if she wanted to come to the New Year’s soiree at all. Everything is too fresh. I know you want to meet her and be a part of this, but unless you can promise me that both dad and you will be completely accepting of her, you can’t be._

_I’m sorry. I love you,_

_Draco_

He may stand by what he did, but that didn’t mean he was blind to the effect it had on other people. The Death Eaters lost both wars they started and the Dark Lord was dead. They weren’t superior in the end and his father gave up a lot to prove a point that was wrong. They believed it at some point, but that point had passed and now they needed to adjust to the reality of the situation: that plenty of girls at his school that could have been Draco’s soulmate would have been uncomfortable at the manor or meeting Draco’s parents precisely for the reasons he listed. That it was Hermione Granger wasn’t the point and his parents didn’t need to know.

He felt mentally drained and ready to get some sleep that he would inevitably wake from due to a nightmare, but he told himself he had two letters to write. If he didn’t do it now he may talk himself out of it and never do it, and that felt unfair to the person he was doing it for.

It meant he stretched a little, propped up a pillow between his back and the headboard and drew up his knees again to lean the book on he put the parchment on for support, just like with the last letter. This letter was easier, because while he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say it wasn’t about him at all.

_Avery, _

_I hope this letter reaches you well, and that you are well. You asked me to write you, so I am. I don’t think you expected a letter quite so soon, though. Not to worry: I didn’t do anything to get me in trouble. (Not yet, anyway). I do, however, have a question to ask that I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier as we were discussing other subjects._

_I’ve recently gotten closer to someone who was someone the Death Eaters targeted during the war. She knew she was going to be a target, so she took measures to keep some of her family members safe: she changed their memories. Now that the war is over, however, she fears that she cannot reverse what she’s done. She misses her family members terribly._

_Now, I recognize that your specialty is not memory charms. Since you work at the Ministry, though, I was hoping that you knew someone who may be willing to help her. She’s too prideful to ask for help herself, convinced she needs to do everything by herself, so I need a little favour. Perhaps one of your Obliviator acquaintances could come by Hogwarts and talk to my friend about this problem? I think if she hears the opinion of an expert that is very much willing to help her, she may change her mind. _

_Thank you for your effort in advance. _

_Kind regards,_

_Draco Malfoy_

Draco folded up both letters, left them on his nightstand and curled back up into bed then. Unconsciously, he listened to hear the breathing of his roommates. Even and slow. Neither Blaise nor Theo woke up from the light Draco used to write the letters or the noise he could have made. He smiled a little about that. It was with a sigh that he closed his eyes, tried to even his own breathing as well and waited until sleep came to get him.


	18. Lean on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope everyone is still staying safe and healthy and enjoys this update. Hope to hear from you!

The next morning, Draco remembered that he told Granger he was going to have a discussion with Blaise and Theo in regards of him being away from the dormitory sometime. Perhaps it was time to acknowledge that it wasn’t just for Blaise and Theo that he preferred sleeping in the dormitory. It was reassuring to hear the other two asleep, knowing that he wasn’t alone even if he sometimes felt like it. Sure, crashing on a couch with Granger wasn’t exactly alone either, but he doubted that Granger didn’t want him in his own room and his own bed in case he did stay over. The easiest solution seemed not to acknowledge it at all and talk over it and distract her next time she brought it up. He was being too honest with her lately anyway.

When Blaise, Theo and him walked into the Great Hall Draco didn’t find Granger at the Gryffindor table, so he was fast to head towards the Slytherin table and sit down at his favourite spot at the end of the table. Theo sat down beside him and Blaise in front of him.

Blaise was in the process of pouring coffee for both himself and Draco when he paused. “You’ll be at try-outs Saturday, right?” he asked.

Draco saluted sarcastically. “Yes, captain.”

Theo looked between Draco and Blaise. “You don’t actually have to try-out, right?” Theo asked. “Technically you’ve been the first seeker since second year. You’ve been on the team years longer than Blaise has been. You should have been captain.”

“But I’m Head Boy,” Draco deadpanned, at the same time realizing he hadn’t done anything with that fact other than get bothered about it by Granger, who must have done plenty of things by now. He frowned a little at that. “And I did quit in sixth year, so it wouldn’t be unfair to make me try-out.”

“But one could also argue that you gave the reserve seeker a chance,” Theo offered.

Blaise poured coffee in Draco’s mug and he took a long sip before he replied to Theo’s words. Realistically the only thing he was doing was trying not to get killed by attempting to kill someone, but that wasn’t quidditch. “If Blaise wants me to try-out, I will,” he simply said. “But he said he doesn’t, so I’ll show up and have opinions.”

“Basically do what you always do regardless of the situation,” Blaise said.

Theo chuckled as Draco rolled his eyes.

They ate and drunk in silence for a couple of minutes until the girls arrived, which included Granger, something Draco looked at strangely momentarily. Daphne sat down next to Blaise, Pansy sat down next to her and Theo made space to let Granger set down next to him.

“Good morning,” Draco said, looking up at Granger as she moved to sit down beside him.

“Good morning,” Granger replied with a smile. “Did you sleep well without me?”

Draco ignored the exchanged glance between Theo and Blaise. It hadn’t been subtle. “It was bearable,” he replied. “I have to get to the Owlery to send two owls away before the first class. I want to get it over with before I change my mind.”

Granger frowned at him for that. “Must be difficult letters if you think you can change your mind about them,” she observed. She didn’t know half of it. “Do you want me to walk with you? I can take my breakfast to go, if you like.”

That was when Blaise disturbed their private conversation with a soft chuckle. “I remember back when Draco couldn’t stand to be alone with Pansy more than an hour at once when they were dating. This surely is progress.”

At another time, Draco would have picked some food to throw at Blaise. Since he was in a good mood, however, he simply smirked. “You’re one to talk. Does everyone know who I saw in Blaise’s bed last Sunday?”

“Shut up,” Blaise said, pointing his toast at Draco. “Telling one person is plenty, Draco.”

Draco gestured at Hermione beside him. “I’m at least going to tell Granger as well and I bet Pansy already knows, so that makes everyone,” he pointed out. “Unless you want me to put it up on the board in the Slytherin common room? Or announce it during dinner later?”

Blaise looked at his toast as though considering whether it was worth throwing at Draco. He seemed to decide against it and instead of respond at all, he put a piece of it in his mouth and mumbled something that sounded like an insult. Draco smirked.

“He’s right, though,” Daphne pointed out. “You are different with Hermione. You’re meant to be different. She’s your soulmate, so you adjust to her.”

Draco pulled a face at those words, but Hermione beat him to speaking. “What do you mean? I recognize that Draco isn’t exactly who he used to be, but I don’t think that’s the soulmate bond. That’s the lessons he learned from the war.” He hated it when she put it like that.

“I mean -” Daphne started and then paused. “It feels strange explaining something to the girl who always seems to know everything.”

Draco was very happy he hadn’t just taken a sip of his coffee, because odds were he would have choked in it. In front of him that almost happened to Blaise. Daphne patted him on his back gently as he was coughing.

“Well, I don’t know Draco that well,” Granger pointed out in between bites of her oatmeal. “And while I did look-up the concept of soulmates when I first read about it, I found the material quite woolly and therefore challenging to understand.” After a couple of seconds, she recognized that everyone in the group was staring at her. “It’s not specific,” she said defensively. “It’s not a spell you can learn, dates and symbols you can remember or potion ingredients you have to put into the cauldron in order.”

“And that’s why you quit Divination,” Draco realized. “It’s too abstract for you. There’s no way to learn to predict the future: you either have the Sight, or you don’t.”And apparently the concept of soulmates was similar to predicting the future in that sense: too much depended on feeling something before being able to understand it. Draco’d been told that meeting your soulmate was like feeling complete and fulfilled, while others described it as calming and reassuring. Personally he’d just been annoyed.

Hermione seemed a little annoyed with that observation. “I don’t like not being good at something,” she said.

“We noticed,” Pansy said dryly. Draco had to press his lips together not to chuckle.

Daphne nodded a little and continued to talk then. “From what I read about it when I was younger and what I’m starting to understand recently,” she glanced aside at Blaise momentarily, “is that it slowly starts feeling like you are meant to be together as you spend more time together. What you feel about the other is more intense than other emotions, regardless of what they are. So when Draco and you are in a good place, Draco should be happier than we’re used to him being. ”

Draco had been called the crown prince of brooding and sarcasm multiple times the last couple of years, and the only reason he hadn’t been the king was because their former Head of House owned that title. Happiness hadn’t been on the menu recently, and therefore feeling it now wasn’t something that he’d acknowledged yet. It was easier to bury the feeling behind Occlumency barriers than deal with it, but if Daphne mentioned it he had to have been doing it unconsciously anyway. 

“It’s like you’re more at ease with each other,” Daphne continued. “Like calm and maybe serenity is easier when you’re around the other person. I’ve read an author that claimed it was easier to take negative emotions like envy and disappointment as well. I haven’t been able to test that theory yet, but it may be true. Soulmates also tend to want to be together. They’re not inseparable or dependent on each other, but they enjoy each other’s company a lot.”

That still sounded vague to Draco, if he was being honest. Granger was right (was she ever not): this was like Divination. He, like Granger, definitely did not have the Inner Eye either and didn’t think anyone had, even if all those prophecies had to have come from somewhere.

“Would you say it’s an inevitable bond?” Granger asked.

Daphne thought about that briefly and shook her head then. “Not necessarily,” she said. “There’ve been plenty of records in history of people that were never together with their soulmate because they didn’t want to be. Some of them claimed not to feel it. For us purebloods it has always been a sensitive issue, because what if your soulmate wasn’t a pureblood?”

“Like Andromeda,” Draco realized. “My aunt Andromeda Tonks. My mother is thinking of reconciling with her and she told me about her. Her timer ticked on for years after she turned eighteen and in the meantime her parents tried setting her up with respectable pureblood men, but she refused because she said she had a right to marry her soulmate. He turned out to be muggleborn.” But Andromeda married him anyway and got disowned.

Daphne nodded. “Exactly like that. Andromeda may have been miserable if she didn’t marry the muggleborn, and so may he have been. So while you always have a choice in the matter, it is a given that your soulmate fits with you best.”

“Right, Blaise?” Draco asked.

Instead of respond to Draco, throw something in his direction or do so much as pull a face at the question, Blaise simply turned away from Theo, Draco and Granger to kiss Daphne.

“That’s disgusting,” Theo said as Blaise seemed intent on exploring Daphne’s mouth with his tongue.

“It ruins breakfast, that’s for sure,” Draco agreed.

Daphne seemed mildly embarrassed by the entire ordeal when Blaise and her broke the kiss seconds afterwards. Draco looked aside at Granger to try and figure out what she thought, but she just seemed amused. On Daphne’s other side, Pansy continued eating as though it wasn’t at all news to her, confirming what Draco had guessed: that Pansy had known that Daphne was Blaise’s soulmate before this morning.

“I actually feel like that’s another side effect of being soulmates,” Daphne said.

“What, sticking your tongue down the other person’s throat?” Theo asked. “As I recall, Draco and Pansy were quite fond of doing that as well and weren’t soulmates.”

“Well, it was better to make out than to hear him talk,” Pansy said.

Draco merely chuckled, not at all offended, because where was the lie, really? He was pretty sure he had excelled at talking nonsense when he was fifteen. In fact, he was pretty sure he could still do exactly that if he tried.

“No, not that,” Daphne said, cheeks flushed slightly still. “I’ve never viewed Blaise as someone that was tactile and I don’t think he is.” Draco thought back to the hug in the dormitory the previous day and Blaise’s telling response to it. He wasn’t tactile. “But with me, he is. So that could just be Blaise and me and it could be a side effect of how comfortable you feel with your soulmate.”

Draco looked aside at Granger and shook his head then. “Not just you,” he said. “I kissed you in the library yesterday and Ginny looked like she’d never seen something so shocking. And we were comfortable enough with each other to fall asleep on the couch.”

Granger considered that briefly, eyebrows frowning momentarily before her expression cleared and she nodded. “You’re completely right,” she said. “It’s nice,” she added with a smile.

That was when Pansy interrupted. “Slughorn incoming,” she warned them.

Blaise lifted his cup of coffee and pretending to be drinking very slowly, while Theo was fast to reach out for his pumpkin juice and Draco managed to put a piece of toast in his mouth that he hadn’t touched yet. In front of him, Daphne had pulled out the latest_ Witch Weekly _seemingly out of nowhere and was telling Pansy all about her horoscope. Granger looked at him strangely.

Draco had full faith that Slughorn would recognize they were all very busy and would therefore walk past them. Unfortunately, the Potions Master couldn’t get a hint and stood still behind Pansy and Daphne and looked at Draco.

“I missed you at detention yesterday, Malfoy,” he said. “I’m afraid skipping detention means another week of detention to make up for it.”

Draco had the good sense not to curse aloud, but he did it inside of his mind for sure. He’d completely forgotten about the detention that he should have headed to right after dinner. Instead he got caught up in a discussion between Granger and him and had been with her the entire evening.

Apparently this soulmate thing was really getting to him.

That was when Granger piped up. “Oh, no, Professor, that’s my fault completely,” she said. Slughorn looked at her as though he hadn’t even noticed a Gryffindor sitting between five Slytherins at the Slytherin table. “Draco is Head Boy for the eight years, you see, and I am Head Girl. I insisted that we go over tutoring schedules to split the work between us and get a head-start. He told me that he couldn’t make it, but I insisted because this was so important to us and to the school. And then I forgot to run it past you. I’m so sorry, Professor.”

Apparently this soulmate thing was really getting to Hermione Granger, too.

Like ice that was melting, Slughorn was suddenly all ears and smiling brightly. “Don’t worry, Miss Granger,” he told her. “I’m glad mister Malfoy and you are taking your Head Girl and Head Boy duties so seriously. Malfoy can be excused from his forgetfulness this once. You are intending to show up this evening, yes?”

“Yes, Professor,” Draco said, no deflection in his voice whatsoever. 

“Very well, then,” Slughorn said, eyes on Hermione still and smiling. “I’ll see you in class. And you at my parties, of course, Miss Granger.”

Slughorn left, and Draco waited until he was out of earshot before he spoke.

“I’m sorry for saying your making out session was ruining breakfast,” he said to Blaise and Daphne. “That was nothing in comparison to -” He waved in the direction where Slughorn had been standing and didn’t finish his sentence.

“Disgusting,” Theo agreed.

Draco finished his toast and looked aside at Granger then. “I am going to head to the Owlery. Do you want to come?”

“Are you going to tell me what you have against your Head of House as we walk?” Granger asked as she got up after she finished her pumpkin juice.

Draco shook his head resolutely. “No,” he said. “Maybe another time.” Probably not. “But thank you for sticking up for me.”


	19. Quidditch try-outs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are again. This is starting to feel like a running joke, honestly. I'm going to keep it short. There has, yet again, been an unkind (downright hateful) comment in my inbox. I've approved it so you can see what I mean instead of have to take my word for it (it's a comment on chapter 18). I've asked for kindness. I've gotten loads of nice messages (and I yet again thank you for all of those), but I can't keep logging into Archive and finding comments like those in my inbox. It's demotivating, it's unkind and it's bad for my mental health. So until further notice this fic is on a hiatus, and if I come back anonymous commenting will be disabled.
> 
> I'll be posting chapter 20, which was the last of what I've written, and maybe my last two chapters for Liability. After that, we'll see. Thank you to those who enjoyed my story and perhaps until later.

Thankfully, the rest of the week passed without anything notable happening. Draco sat out his detention in the Charms classroom doing his homework and doing some leisurely reading. Since Defence Against the Dark Arts was a joke and there was only so much you could do learning spells you’d already learned before he still didn’t do all of his homework, but he did finish the assignment that Sprout asked them to write and had caught up on all his written Charms and Transfiguration homework as well. It was a lot less time-consuming to do homework when he’d already sat through the classes and already knew the spells, as it turned out. It meant he had some free time to look through the schedules that Granger had given him for their Head Boy and Head Girl tutoring duties and question her decision-making, because he shouldn’t be the one tutoring Defence Against the Dark Arts.

That Saturday he had to get out of bed early for quidditch try-outs. For some reason Blaise thought it was a good idea to start try-outs at nine am and Draco promised he’d be there. Most of their former team members had graduated, so it was just them trying to rebuild a new team. After they’d kicked everyone off the Pitch that wasn’t wearing green try-outs begun in the form of multiple training exercises at the same time that Blaise and him observed and discussed about. Draco let Blaise do most of the work about the Chasers, since he’d have to fly together with them, and kept an eye out for anyone that may be a good successor of his position for next year.

Three hours later Draco felt like they’d seen every single person in their house that could fly a broom show them their beating, chasing and keeping skills. Privately, Blaise and him had admitted to each other that there was no way they would be winning the Quidditch Cup, but that didn’t mean Draco didn’t want to form a team that made it nearly impossible to explain why they hadn’t. Blaise was thinking the same, and they’d been discussing since the moment the try-outs ended, even as they were showering and walking back to the castle.

“I know Urquhart thought Harper was a Seeker, but he needed to replace you,” Blaise pointed out as they approached the Greenhouses. “And now I don’t have to. I’m not saying I disagree with Urquhart -”

“But you are,” Draco pointed out, smirking at Blaise. “Albeit I think Urquhart didn’t want Harper to play Chaser because he knew he’d be better than him.”

Despite of himself, Blaise chuckled. “So you agree that Harper should be a Chaser?”

Draco shrugged. “I suppose. He was a good Seeker from what I’ve heard, but I want someone that can hold the spot for years after I’m gone. Some consistency is good for the team, like we had with Marcus and Cassius.”

“So are you opposed to -” Blaise started, only to pause and sigh. “You’re absolutely right about Gryffindors. They never learn. For the love of Merlin, what is Potter doing here?”

“What do you mean what is Potter -” And that was when Draco spotted Potter walking in the direction of the castle as well. “Where’s the Weasel?”

Both Blaise and him shot a look around. “Nowhere to be seen,” Blaise confirmed for him.

That was strange. In Draco’s experience, Potter was attached at the hip with Weasley. Usually with Granger too, but that couldn’t be said any more since Granger decided to do the sensible thing and get an education whereas the Weasel and Potter decided they needed to prove a point about how dysfunctional the Ministry of Magic was. There was no need, really. Everyone that had been paying the slightest amount of attention already knew it. Giving a boy a job based off his mastery of the Disarming Charm was a problem.

“Do you want to wait here until he’s gone?” Blaise asked, looking aside at Draco. “The last time you came face to face with Potter you ended up in detention, that you subsequently forgot about.”

Personally, Draco felt like he’d rather be in detention for the rest of the year than have to stand the nonsense that usually came out of Potter’s mouth. That probably wasn’t a sensible decision, but that was too bad. He spent the past two years making sensible decisions about things that should never have been his to decide about and now he was done with it. However, the sensible thing for Potter to do would have been not to show up to begin with, since he still didn’t go to school here. With most Death Eaters in Azkaban Draco doubted that Potter was at Hogwarts for his work, which left one reason only that Draco already pointed out the hypocrisy of last week.

“Do you mean if I want to be the sensible adult in the situation and adjust to him?” Draco rephrased the question and shook his head. “No, not really. There’s a very small group of people I am willing to adjust to and Potter, for some reason, isn’t on the list.”

Draco’s family’s motto was  _ Sanctimonia Vincet Semper,  _ purity conquers all, but recently Draco had started to come up with a list of possible better-fitting mottos in his head. The one currently in the forefront of his mind?  _ Resent and remember. _

Blaise shook his head briefly at that, but didn’t comment. Together, they continued walking. “As I was saying, are you opposed to – He’s turning around. And walking in our direction.”

Draco didn’t need live updates from what Harry Potter was doing. At a previous moment in time that would have been useful – ‘Potter’s been arrested by Snatchers and coming to the manor now, run while you can before they ask you to identify him’ would have been great – but now he could see it with his own two eyes and wasn’t appreciative of it at all. It meant he side-eyed Blaise and ignored whatever implication the other was hinting at.

“Am I opposed to what?” he asked, an edge of irritation to his voice.

That was when Potter was within earshot. “Draco, I was looking for you,” he said, making his way towards Blaise and Draco.

Blaise and Draco exchanged a glance, the kind of glance that held an entire conversation. He couldn’t give Blaise the answers he was looking for – what was Potter doing here, why was he looking for Draco, what kind of trouble did Draco get into now? – if he didn’t know the answers himself. He folded his arms over one another out of habit and simply glared at Potter moodily as the other stood still in front of Blaise and him.

“What do you want?” he asked Potter. “Granger is probably in the library. Don’t worry, I didn’t dare sit with her today. I had an inkling someone would come around that minded it.”

Potter’s face expression turned irritated momentarily, but he seemed to bite on his tongue. “Hermione wrote me a letter explaining what was going on between the two of you,” he said. “Of course, I would never have acted the way I did if I’d known. It seems quite important to her that the two of us get along, so I told her I’d talk to you.”

Draco looked aside at Blaise briefly, lips pressed together as he was trying not to laugh. Now, he could be the worse person and tell Potter he wanted an apology or he wouldn’t try to talk to him at all, but possibly Potter may tell him that he didn’t regret what he did because he wasn’t working with the full information at the time and it seemed to him that Granger was fraternizing with the enemy. Loads of people did loads of things without the full information, Draco found. In some instances, there was no way not to.

“Where’s your red-haired friend?” Draco asked. “The one who told Granger she didn’t have to sit with Death Eaters, plural, while there was only one sitting at that table?”And a defected one at that. Ron Weasley could not have been less accurate had he tried.

Potter sighed briefly. “Ron needs some more time to accept that Hermione’s soulmate is,” he paused as though trying to find a non-offensive word to describe Draco. “You,” he ended the sentence. “He says he’s worried about her. I told him that Hermione knows what she’s doing, but he doesn’t trust you and doesn’t want to make it seem like he agrees with the choices Hermione is making.”

“Well, he doesn’t have to, does he?” Blaise asked. “It’s not his choices. It’s Hermione’s. I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down at the prospect of being friends with a Death Eater, but Draco is my friend and you don’t let friends down even if you don’t agree with their decisions.”

And that was a little thing they called fraternization. Loyalty between them was extremely strong within their house. If Draco ever had to bury a body, he’d have his pick of people of who he’d do it with. And similarly, if any of his friends ever had to bury a body, he was ready to do it no questions asked. Blaise had his back regardless of the decisions he made. And he had Blaise’s back regardless of how many inappropriate girls he had crushes on before he fell in love with Daphne.

“He just needs some time,” Potter said. “He’ll get there. But I’m with Hermione, so I’m here again. And before you tell me I can’t be here-”

“You can’t be here,” Draco interrupted. “Literally no one else that isn’t either a student or staff has been here twice the first two weeks without a valid reason. You don’t have one.”

“I know that,” Potter said, seemingly starting to get irritated. “But I wanted to see Hermione and I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, maybe you should have sent a letter then,” Blaise suggested. Draco smirked. “Like Hermione did, because she knew it was in the school rules that she couldn’t leave the premises unless it was a Hogsmeade weekend. So, second option, you could also have waited until October.”

Blaise and Draco exchanged a glance before they both started grinning. Potter looked between Blaise and Draco, clearly unsure what was going on.

“I just love it when you say what I’m thinking,” Draco told Blaise. “For a change I’m not the bad guy, because I didn’t say aloud what everyone is thinking. This time it’s you. Are you looking forward to your detention for pointing out the obvious, Blaise?”

“I’ll sit with you,” Blaise replied, eyes dancing.

Potter seemed to get more confused. “I don’t understand a word of this,” he said. Was Potter aware it was in fact in the English language? “Which may be for the better. Can I just talk to you, Draco? Alone?”

Draco considered that briefly as he studied Potter. He recalled the last time he’d been alone anywhere with Potter and shook his head then. “No,” he said. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it to Blaise as well.” And Theo, Pansy or Daphne for that matter of fact, but they weren’t there.

“Fine,” Potter said. “I told Hermione that I was happy for her that she found her soulmate and that she believes you and her can make it work. Like her, I believe you’re not an altogether bad person. I haven’t forgotten that you saved me in Malfoy manor and that your mother saved me during the Battle of Hogwarts, which is why I testified in your and your family’s favour. Currently, I feel like that’s more important to base my judgement on in comparison to what we said and did when we were kids.”

It was silent between them for a couple of seconds. In those silent seconds, Draco thought back to his summer under curfew, the Death Eaters trials that he was expected to testify and cooperate in because his family defected at the last minute and how draining it’d been not knowing if he was going to end up in Azkaban after all. Potter testified in favour of Draco and he knew it. But Draco had also known that the two occasions that Potter could have been killed, a Malfoy had been there to prevent it. It was a strange back-and-forth between causing debts and paying them and now it seemed that neither one of them knew where they were standing.

“Well, I’m glad the great Harry Potter approves of my relationship,” Draco deadpanned. “I do not need your approval, Potter, but I am glad that you’re not intending to make this more difficult for Hermione. I bet she’s not happy about Weasley’s inability to accept this is happening. So while I mostly don’t care, I am happy that you’re doing this for Hermione. She really seems to care about you.”

Beside him, Blaise seemed to hold in a remark until Draco looked aside at him. That was when he spoke. “Well, well. Look at the two of you being mature enough to have a conversation without cursing each other’s faces off. Granger would be proud. Can we go, now? I’m starving.”

Draco shrugged. “Sure,” he said before addressing Potter. “Want to come? You can shock everyone by sitting at our table? That ought to be funny if nothing else. Hermione may be there too.”

Harry actually agreed. Draco was the least shocked by that if the face expressions they saw when they sat down together in the Great Hall were anything to go by.


	20. Family affair

The weekend passed without anything notable happening. Draco and Hermione patrolled the grounds on Saturday evening, which made Draco feel a lot better about not having done anything for his Heads duties since he now sacrificed his Saturday evening to do just that. He was starting to feel like he was really on his best behaviour on Sunday midday, which he spent tutoring Potions to the second and third years, who unsurprisingly were not good at it since they had Slughorn for a teacher their entire time at Hogwarts. Hermione eyed him when he made precisely that remark after the students left, but she didn't ask.

All seemed to be going surprisingly well. That was fishy, and Draco was waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

It did just that Monday over lunch, which his Slytherin friends group spent at the Gryffindor table, mingling surprisingly well at this point. While Draco was, of course, sitting with Granger, who was talking to Theo, Blaise and Ginny Weasley were discussing quidditch and Daphne had taken up talking to Parvati. Even Pansy had put her best foot forward and was attempting a conversation with Luna Lovegood out of all people.

However, since they were at the Gryffindor table, their favourite Head of House Horace Slughorn couldn’t find them at first. Draco was listening to Theo and Hermione’s discussion about muggle books (Theo liked muggle classics, probably because his father had always forbidden him to touch anything that had anything to do with muggles) and spotted Slughorn looking around the Slytherin table from the corner of his eye.

Draco got up from the Gryffindor table quietly, taking a piece of toast to go, and tried getting away without being noticed.

Granger, of course, noticed. “Draco, where are you going?”

“To the library,” he made up on the spot. “I have to get a book. I’ll catch you in Charms.”

According to the frown in her eyebrows she was not buying it. “You’re not allowed to have food in the library,” she pointed out. 

“I’ll eat the toast on my way there,” he replied, already taking a few more steps in the direction of the Great Hall exit.

Too late. 

“Mister Malfoy,” Slughorn said with a raised voice and made his way towards the Gryffindor table. “Come with me to the Headmistress’ office, please. We’ve gotten a visit from a very concerned Hit Witch about a letter you wrote.”

In a couple of seconds, Draco realized what Avery read when he sent her the letter. He claimed that someone he had become friends with recently had used a memory charm during the war to aid someone else. What she read was that he had used a memory charm on someone during the war, found himself regretting it and wanted to undo what he did but couldn’t say he did it because it would be considered another crime committed that he didn’t come clean about during his trial.

There was only one thing he could do, since running would make it all worse. 

He couldn’t approach Hermione then and there, because the entire group would know what she did and she told him in confidence. Adding to that, Slughorn may think he was trying to get her to manipulate her into helping him, since that’s what Hermione had been doing once or twice when Slughorn complained about something he did, and they may not want to hear it at all. He, of course, was the bad guy in this situation. 

It meant he moved over to Pansy, wrapped his arms around her from behind and spoke directly into her ear. “Hermione confided in me about something she did during the war and I tried to help her fix it by writing to the Ministry, but it looks like I’m going down for the crime.” He dropped the piece of toast on her plate.

“Mister Malfoy,” Slughorn approached.

Draco was tempted to make an entire scene out of it, just because Slughorn would be proven wrong and would look like an enormous idiot for it. He was probably only doing what he was told to do, but he could have done it before lunch and found Draco at the end of one of his classes, but instead he chose to do it after he had his lunch and in the Great Hall for everyone to see it. It may have been done this way to show everyone Slughorn had no favouritism towards his own house whatsoever, because he could treat his eighth year prefect and Head Boy like any common criminal. 

Like it wasn’t extremely obvious already that Slughorn favoured everything but Slytherin.

Draco let go of Pansy and made his way over to Slughorn, a sarcastic face expression present and closed posture with his arms over one another. “Professor,” he acknowledged. “Let’s get this resolved so I can get back to my apparently necessary education.”

Slughorn side-eyed and seemed to want to scold at him, but refrained. “Follow me, mister Malfoy,” was all he said before leading the way to the exit of the Great Hall.

Draco knew the way to the Headmistress’ Office well by now. The hallways didn’t change much. He didn't usually need a chaperone to get there, but it seemed that Avery had recognized he was a flight risk. She wasn’t wrong. He tried to make sure not to do as much as breathe in the wrong direction, because Slughorn had his hand nearby his wand and probably wouldn’t hesitate to use it. He would be seen as a hero in case Draco tried to run and Slughorn hit him with a spell to get him back, of course.

He was pretty sure he’d never met anyone as pathetic as Horace Slughorn. 

They walked up the stairs to the office and Draco walked in first without knocking or waiting for a response from Slughorn. What he thought he was going to see was exactly what he saw. McGonagall in the chair behind her desk and Avery in the chair where Hermione had sat when Draco walked in here a couple of weeks prior. He made his way towards the desk as well and sat down in the other chair, leaving Slughorn to stand around. 

“You asked for me, Headmistress McGonagall?” he asked dryly. 

“Mister Malfoy, yes I did, please have a -” She didn’t finish that sentence when she realized he had in fact already invited himself to sit down. She scrutinized him briefly and then spoke again. “This is about a letter you sent Mrs Avery about a week prior. Are you aware which letter we are talking about?”

“Painfully so, Headmistress,” Draco said with a fake-cheerful undertone and a fake-cheerful smile on his face.

She didn’t ask why it was painful, but she seemed to wonder about his choice of words before she continued to talk. “Mister Malfoy, we are all on your side here and only want what’s best for you,” she said, ignoring the way that he chuckled at that remark as though funny (it really was). “This is why we’re giving you a chance to explain what you wrote down in the letter.”

“A chance to explain! How wonderful and kind of you,” Draco said overdramatically, maintaining that some words just didn’t need a sarcastic undertone to be sarcastic. “However, I’m afraid I’m confused. What part of the letter requires an explanation?”

Avery, as ever, had no patience for his antics. “Draco, in the letter you sent me you wrote about someone, a woman, who had changed someone’s memories to keep them safe. Who is this person?”

He understood why Avery thought he would give up the name. After all, naming names and facts was what he’d been doing the entire summer under the guise of cooperation. The summer was over, however, and he had been pardoned of his crimes. He was a loyal friend and he promised Hermione he wouldn’t tell anyone, so he wasn’t going to.

“I kept her anonymous for a reason,” Draco replied, well aware this would only feed the idea that he’d done it instead of some woman he just became friends with. “So, respectfully, it’s none of your business. I asked you for a favour, not to accuse me of a crime.”

“We’re not accusing you of anything,” McGonagall protested immediately. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened, mister Malfoy. So if you could tell us about this woman you speak of, we could help her.”

Draco leaned forward, eyebrows frowning. “Changing someone’s memories, even for the greater good, is illegal,” he said. “She’d be looking at a prison sentence.” Actually, she would have been looking at a prison sentence if she wasn’t Hermione Granger and it hadn’t been war. That was funny, because when he went against the law to protect his parents he had been in the wrong, but when it came out what Granger did she would get praise. 

“Draco, think of the people whose memories she,” Avery started, and there was an unsubtle pause that made Draco roll his eyes, “changed. They deserved to have their memories back and continue their lives. That’s much more important than a prison sentence.”

“You must never have been to Azkaban,” Draco replied dryly without batting an eye. “I have problems with what you lot consider the greater good. I don’t feel like cooperating.”

Avery sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Draco -” She started.

Slughorn interrupted her, probably unintentionally. “The boy is not going to talk,” he pointed out. “We don’t have a lot of options here. This is the lives of multiple people we’re talking about. We can’t let this slide.”

McGonagall eyed him. “What do you suggest we do, Horace?”

Draco was eager to hear it so he could use it against Slughorn later, but it was at that point that footsteps on the stairs to the Headmistress’ Office sounded. Seconds later, someone knocked on the door frantically. 

“Excuse me a moment,” Headmistress McGonagall said. She got up from the chair behind the desk and headed over to the door of her office, which she opened just a crack. 

Draco shot a look behind him none too subtly. From where the door was opened he could just see a head of dark curls and he exhaled a sigh of relief. Both Pansy and Hermione had come through for him, it seemed. Now it was only a question if the supposedly respectable adults in this situation had the right mind to listen to the Brightest Witch of Her Age. Of course, Hermione Granger was the last person to know anything about this crime. 

“Is it important, miss Granger?” Draco heard McGonagall ask.

“Yes!” Hermione insisted immediately, a little breathlessly. “It’s about the letter Draco wrote to the Ministry. I know more about it. You can’t have them arrest him, Headmistress!”

“No one is getting arrested, miss Granger,” McGonagall replied, but he heard her step aside so that Hermione could walk in as well. 

When Draco looked behind him again, Hermione walked into the Headmistress’ office as well and made a beeline for him. He stood up from the chair so she could sit and stood still behind the chair, elbows leaning on the back of it. 

“You know about this letter, miss Granger?” Slughorn asked, who apparently had none too subtly been eavesdropping as well and didn’t even extend them the courtesy to pretend that he hadn’t. “Do you know whose memories mister Malfoy changed?”

Hermione’s face expression changed the moment Slughorn made the assumption that it was Draco that’d done it. She took a deep breath. “It was me. Draco was trying to protect me and help me and instead you dragged him in here like he’s a criminal.”

“To be fair I am a criminal,” he supplied unhelpfully.

She turned around in the chair for the sole purpose of glaring at him. “Not of this crime,” she said. “That was me. I modified my parents’ memories because I was afraid the Death Eaters would go after them and use them against me. I was afraid they would torture them and lure me out of hiding.”

“And that was the plan until we realized Mr and Mrs Granger had disappeared,” Draco supplied again. 

He was well aware that they had three pairs of eyes on them, but he couldn't care less. He did what he had to do to try and help a friend and everyone misinterpreted it. That may be the most funny thing about the situation. He got why they thought it. He did have a criminal record that made clear he was capable of. But he was also an eighteen year old with friends who were stubborn and needed help fixing their problems. 

Hermione sighed. “I told you to keep it to yourself and you went to write the Ministry of Magic about it,” she said. “I cannot believe you, Draco.”

“Well, I can’t believe you didn’t do it yourself already,” he said. “It’s your parents. They’re safe now. The spell should be undone so they can come back and you can be with them. You’re not being noble or brave. You’re torturing yourself unnecessarily. I’m telling you, as your friend, that you’re behaving absolutely insanely by thinking you need to solve your own problems by yourself. From what I’ve seen others always expect you to clean their messes, but you never let anyone clean one of yours.”

Hermione got up from the chair. She made her way over to him and wrapped his arms around him without so much as a smile or a blink of her eyes as a warning. He didn’t think she would have responded well to being lectured about her behaviour, but she was taking it much better than he’d hoped. It meant he wrapped his arms around her in return and pushed some of her hair aside carefully. 

Over Hermione’s shoulder, he met Avery’s gaze with a slight smirk on his face. 

McGonagall cleared her throat. “Hermione,” she started, “you modified your parents’ memories to save them from the Death Eaters and your friend mister Malfoy here tried to find help with the Ministry to restore those memories?” Surprisingly, she didn’t sound all that surprised.

“Yes, Headmistress,” Hermione replied, the words muffled against Draco’s shoulder before she let go. “And he’s not my friend. He’s my soulmate.”

The silence that filled the room after that remark made Draco want to laugh and never stop laughing. Slughorn looked like he was ready to retire again because he may never recover and Avery seemed to have realized her error in judgement far too late. She thought he was messing with her when he mentioned Granger. Well, he wouldn’t joke about such serious things. That was a lesson plenty of people had learned since he got together with Hermione. 

“Draco, why didn’t you just tell us this?”Avery asked after a couple of seconds.

He let go of Hermione after a kiss on her hair and turned to look at the Hit Witch. “One, it was none of your business. Two, you may not even have believed me. And three, since you immediately thought it was me I wanted to humiliate you further and thought this was the best way to go.”

Avery sighed at that. “Can you blame me? You’ve modified the memories of at least twenty people, that I know of, and I think there’s much more that you’ve never told anyone at the Ministry about. This had your hallmarks all over it.”

Draco shrugged. He’d said it before: Innocent until proven guilty didn’t count for someone who had committed crimes before, no matter the reason. “I understand the reasoning, but I’m choosing to be bitter and petty about it,” he replied. McGonagall looked like she had something to say about that, so he continued. “Now that we’ve established it wasn’t actually me, can we please try and help Granger get her parents back?”

“That’s a good suggestion, mister Malfoy,” McGonagall agreed. “Miss Avery, can you take miss Granger to the Ministry of Magic in London and find her the best obliviators so we can get this situation resolved as soon as possible?”

“Of course, Headmistress,” Avery replied, but she turned to him again first. “This is not the last we’ve spoken about this,” she warned him. “Miss Granger, will you join me?”

Hermione got up from the chair and followed Avery to the exit of the office. When she passed him by, she mouthed the words ‘thank you’ at him. Draco doubted that was the last they would have spoken about this either, but that was fine. He would hold his ground on it, and perhaps he had a chance of Hermione admitting she was wrong for the very first time, perhaps in her life. 

“I apologize for the inconvenience, mister Malfoy,” McGonagall said once Hermione and Avery left. “I presume you have a class to attend?”

Draco checked his watch and frowned then, pretending as though something just occurred to him. It didn’t. “Yes, Headmistress, my Charms class started five minutes ago,” he said. “But I am not sure how to explain this situation to Professor Flitwick and I suspect he will give me detention for showing up late.”

Draco was completely convinced that McGonagall saw right through him, but the small smile that implied as much was gone within a second. “Professor Slughorn, please walk mister Malfoy to his Charms class and explain to Professor Flitwick that this has all been one big misunderstanding and that mister Malfoy is late to class through no fault of his own.”

Professor Slughorn didn’t seem all too pleased, but he didn’t protest. “I’ll do that, Minerva,” was all he said before heading to the exit.

“Stay out of trouble, won’t you, mister Malfoy,” McGonagall requested.

“I’ll try, Headmistress,” he replied.

  
  



End file.
